


somewhere along in the bitterness

by bemynewobsession



Category: Harlots (TV)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Psychological Trauma, Self-Harm, punching blayne in his fucking mouth
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-17
Updated: 2018-10-07
Packaged: 2019-06-28 20:59:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 21,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15714978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bemynewobsession/pseuds/bemynewobsession
Summary: Six months after watching Isabella get dragged away to Bedlam, Charlotte finds her on her doorstep on Greek Street.





	1. Am I Not Cursed?

**Author's Note:**

> This is only the first chapter and I have not gotten to the main storyline yet I am Sorry, but I am currently writing the rest and I have no fucking clue how long it is going to be but this is going to be as angsty as my soul can handle so strap the fuck in. Also please be aware that the later chapters are going to heavily reference psychological torture and PTSD so trigger warning in advance.

Lucy Wells was not having a good week.

 

She was sitting in the dining room of what used to be her mother’s brothel. She guessed now it belonged to her older sister, Charlotte.

 

She couldn’t move the lump from her throat that had been there since learning of her mother’s hanging and her own Lord Fallon’s part in it. She stared dejectedly at the breakfast that lay before her.

 

Charlotte walked by her then. The older girl’s eyes were red-rimmed and tired as well. Her sister gently kissed the top of her head as she moved past her to sit at the head of the table. Lucy just sunk down further into her chair, unable to meet her sister’s face under the weight of her own guilt.

 

After Charlotte, a woman who Lucy had never seen walked in behind. The woman was likely their mother’s age but she had an air of regality about her that spoke of money. It dawned on Lucy suddenly who this woman was. _Lady Fitz. Heiress of Blayne. What in the name of all things holy was she doing at a Greek Street brothel?_

The Lady moved to sit down next to her sister and she and her sister shared a soft smile. _Oh._ This woman was Charlotte’s cull. She must have been a special one because it was rare that culls spent the entire night and the next morning at the house, but from what Lucy knew of the Blayne name, she likely had plenty of money to pay Charlotte whatever she wanted.

 

Lucy’s eyes remained trained on her food as her Pa, followed by Jacob and Fanny who was holding her daughter to her chest, walked in to sit down for breakfast as well.

 

Charlotte and Lady Fitz were speaking in soft whispers that were slowly growing more fervent. Lucy began to subtly try to listen to what they were saying.

 

“I am sure he knows of where I am, Charlotte. It won’t be long before he fetches me to go to Bedlam.” _Bedlam? The institution for the deranged and delusional?_ Lucy didn’t know Lady Fitz very well, but she most certainly did not seem like the type that belonged in such a place.

Lucy watched, stunned, as her sister placed her hand, as a _lover_ would, onto the Lady’s thigh.

“I won’t let them.” Charlotte was speaking nearly at full volume now. _She speaks like she has any power over what rich men decide to do with their women._

  
  
There was a thunderous knock at the door. Lucy jumped up at the chance to get away from the tension of the breakfast table. When she opened the door, there stood three men wearing guard uniforms. One of them held shackles in their hands.

 

“We have it on good authority that Lady Isabella Fitzwilliam is at this house. We have come to take her to Bedlam on her brother’s orders.”

Lucy heard footsteps clunk behind and turned her head around to see her Pa, Charlotte, and the Lady in question standing by the stairs.

 

“Let them through, Lucy.” her Pa said. Lucy snapped her head back to him, stunned at how he was obviously going to just let them take her.

 

“W-wait a minute. No. No you can’t take her!”  Lucy could sense the fear and dread in her sister’s voice.

“Charlotte, it will be alright. I will go with them.” The Lady’s upper class accent stood out starkly against the other’s in the room. Her voice did not waver as she spoke.

 

“No!” Lucy watched as her sister pulled on the Lady’s arm and looked on in absolute shock as she kissed the woman directly on the mouth in full view of the guards and their Pa.

 

The Lady pulled away from the kiss and cupped Charlotte’s cheek lovingly. _Had her sister won the heart of a noblewoman? How was that even possible?_

“Please do not make a scene, my darling. There is no use in trying to fight this.” The Lady moved more quickly away from Lucy’s sister this time. Their Pa had to grab Charlotte to hold her back from trying to grasp at the older woman again.

 

“No! No! ISABELLA!” _Isabella? Charlotte was calling a Lady of stature by her first name without even the pretense of an honorific?_

 

The Lady locked eyes with Lucy for a brief moment as she moved in the most dignified way one could to the guards who immediately shackled her arms. In that shared look, she could tell the Lady was pleading with her to take care of her sister. Lucy nodded dumbly.

Her sister had jerked out of her Pa’s arms long enough to stand in the doorway and watch as the Lady was taken away. It was Lucy this time who had to stop Charlotte from diving out after the carriage as it drove away.

Her sister kept screaming out her lover’s name accompanied by the occasional heart-breaking “NO!” Lucy simply held her sister against her chest and let her scream and cry until her voice ran raw.

 

Lucy looked up at the sky, tears streaming down her own face in anger. _God in heaven, how could you do this to us? First our mother and then in one week you take away the only real lovers my sister and I have ever known._ Lucy choked a bit on that thought. At least she had _believed_ Fallon’s love to be real.

When her sisters screams finally turned into full bodied silent sobs, Lucy pulled her up gently and let her slump against her bonelessly. She and her Pa all but carried her up the stairs and laid her down gently on her bed.

 

As they shut the door behind them, Lucy lunged into her Pa’s arms. She cried softly against his chest. She could still hear her sister’s heart-broken screams echoing in her mind.

They walked down the stairs together to sit again at the breakfast table. Fanny was still seated there with her babe along with Jacob. They both looked saddened and stunned by what had happened.

 

Her Pa sat at the head of the table this time.

 

After a tense few minutes of silence, her Pa chuckled softly to himself.

“What’s so funny, Pa?” Her Pa looked up and gave Lucy a watery smile.

“You know just last week Charlotte was in here claiming that Lady Fitz was ‘not her beloved’. Guess she changed her mind.”

Lucy didn’t really know how to respond to that. It always seemed harlots weren’t ever really meant to love. Maybe Charlotte hadn’t realized until it was too late that she was even in love with Lady Isabella Fitzwilliam.

She prayed silently then that one day the Lady would find her way back to her sister. For her sister’s sanity and her own.

  
  
  
  


Charlotte didn’t get out of bed for three days after Isabella was taken from her. Her sister would come in sometimes and beg her to eat. She only acquiesced to the demands and let Lucy feed her soup because even after all these years, she couldn’t bring herself to say no to whatever Lucy asked of her.

 

She finally brought herself to get out of bed when Lucy came in one day and laid down beside her. Lucy grabbed Charlotte and held her to her chest. Charlotte reveled in her sister’s familiar scent.

 

“Charlotte. I really need you to snap out of this.” Charlotte tilted her head up to look at Lucy.

“Wh-”

“Charlotte. I just lost Ma. I lost the man who I thought cared for and loved me. I can’t lose you too.”

 

Charlotte choked down the lump that rose into her throat at her sister’s pleading voice. She forced herself to smile softly.

“Okay, Sprout. Right as always.”

 

 

After that, the months passed by mindlessly. Charlotte ran the house as the bawd and the occasional harlot for the right price, putting on fake smiles to charm the men out of the most money possible just as her Ma had taught her. Lucy let herself be one of the harlots again.

Her sister would joke sometimes about how it was bland with Fallon, just having sex with one man all the time, but Charlotte could see the pain in her eyes when she spoke. That bastard had manipulated her sister into loving him.

 

Charlotte thought of Isabella all the time. She dreamt of her at night. She found herself imagining her whenever she lay with culls, barely keeping herself from crying out the woman’s name whenever she would occasionally climax.

Her Pa cornered her one night to talk about it.

 

“You told me that day. That first day after the two of you had laid together that she wasn’t your beloved. Were you lying or did you just not know?”

Charlotte looked down at her hands in her lap.

 

“Pa I-I just don’t know.”

 

“You know when your Ma and I first got together, she was still sleeping with other culls. She told me she didn’t know how to love or if she could be loved.” Charlotte looked up into her Pa’s caring brown eyes.

“She told me she realized one day that she couldn’t imagine or bear the thought any longer of laying with anyone other than me.”

 

Charlotte scoffed. “So that’s all love is then? Suddenly not wanting to have fuck anyone else?”

“When you think of her Charlotte, do you only think of sex? Or do you imagine a life together?”

 

Charlotte trained her eyes on him with hesitant interest.

“Your ma said she knew the love was real when she found out she was pregnant with Jacob. She knew I was the father because I was the only man she had lain with in months. When she found out, she thought of nothing else but wanting to raise him with me.”

Charlotte began to cry softly. William gently clasped her face with both hands, wiping her tears away as he did so.

 

She looked up at him with watery eyes.

 

“I really love her Pa. I-I didn’t think it was possible for me to fall in love. But I did. And-”

“She was taken from you.”

 

She gently removed his hands from her face and set them in her lap.

 

“That girl I helped Lydia Quigley take. That poor sweet little thing. She told me I was cursed.”

“Charlotte. You’re not cursed.”

She stood up from her chair so quickly that it clattered to the floor beneath her.

“Am I not? Was my mother not hung that very next day? My beloved taken from me the very next week?” Her voice cracked at the word ‘beloved’.

“Charlotte.” Will stood up beside her and held her to his chest. “Life is not fair. Life is not meant to always be bliss and happiness. But we must go on living. We live for those moments that are happy. For those moments that do bring us bliss. The situation may seem hopeless now but I know in my heart we can get through this together.”

Charlotte nodded silently into his chest.

 

 

She sat in front of her mirror that night brushing out her hair, thinking as always of Isabella. She was struck by a memory of a conversation with her cull earlier that day.

_“Ah yes. It is the first night of the Pleasure Gardens tonight.” Charlotte winced at the words. The last she was at the Pleasure Gardens was one of the first times she connected with Isabella._

_“I was wondering dear Ms. Wells, if you would be willing to accompany me? My wife finds the whole event appalling but I cannot show up without a beautiful woman on my arm.” Charlotte smiled her generic fake cull smile at him in response._

_“You’ll have to forgive me, my Lord, but the night of the Pleasure Gardens is one of our busiest nights. I couldn’t possibly tear myself away from my girls.” The cull grinned back in response._

_“Of course. Silly of me to even ask.”_

It was very likely the vile Marquess of Blayne, the very man who entrapped her beloved in Bedlam to begin with would be at the Pleasure Gardens.

“Perhaps I shall take Lord Darnley up on his offer.” She spoke aloud to herself, already scheming at what she would do.

  
  


The night of the first of the Pleasure Gardens arrived and Charlotte was dressed in her finest wig and dress that she could afford on Greek Street money. Lord Darnley was a friendly man, stopping at as many tents as possible to show her off and make small talk with the other Lords and Ladies, but Charlotte had eyes for only one tent.

She zeroed in on her target. The Marquess. As vile looking and repulsive as ever, laughing and drinking without care. She could already feel her blood beginning to boil.

“My lord?” Darnley turned to her with a lecherous grin.

“Do you mind if I take a turn for a bit? I wish to stretch my legs.” Darnley waved her off as he was flirting anyway with some young duchess in their current tent.

 

With every step she took towards the Marquess’s tent she could feel her heart pounding harder with anger. _How dare this sadistic rapist be allowed to laugh and party the night away while his sister lay in torment in a torturous institution._

She finally arrived at the tent and cleared her throat loudly. The Marquess stood to greet her.

“Ah! Ms. Wells. How long it’s be-” She could stand her anger no longer and before she knew it, her fist connected to the vile man’s face with a sickening and satisfying crunch. It was likely she had broken his nose and his drunkenness coupled with her punch had him land on the ground with the force.

 

The rest of the tent just sat gaping at her.

 

She turned on her heel immediately and walked quickly back to Lord Darnley. She grabbed his arm and pulled him along to his carriage before he had a chance to say anything.

 

“Ms. Wells what are you-” She pushed him against the doors of his carriage and kissed him as forcefully as possible.

“I am drunk and absolutely throbbing with need, my Lord.” Her breathlessness, from anger really, was an ample guise for arousal.

The Lord’s eyes widened and darkened even in the darkness they were in.

“Well then. Let us return to my estate.” Charlotte grasped his arm as he helped her into the carriage.

“Actually my Lord I was hoping we could return to Greek Street. Unless you have condoms with you.” His face greyed slightly at that.

“Oh-ah-uh yes.” He tapped the window to signal his driver, instructing him to return them to Greek Street.

Charlotte hid the hand she had punched Blayne with in her lap, covered by her other hand.

She let the Lord rut her roughly that night even though it wasn’t very pleasurable for her. She didn’t care. Her satisfaction that night had been quite sated by the sound of the Marquess’s nose breaking against her fist.

 

 

Lord Darnley had left the next morning before she awoke, 20 guineas lay on the table beside her bed and another 10 had been given to Will she learned when she came down for breakfast.

Charlotte ate clumsily with her left hand and tried to hide her other hand under the table but her sister’s scrutiny ousted her.

“Charlotte what’s wrong with your right hand? Pull off a cull too hard eh?”

Charlotte grinned ferociously back at her.

“Honestly, Sprout? I broke it last night. Punching the Marquess of Blayne.” Her sister gasped scandalously impressed.

“You did not!” Charlotte just grinned and took another clumsy bite of porridge with her left hand.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I KNOW Isabella hasn't even come back yet I KNOW but I felt like this was a good place for an ending point for the first chapter. 
> 
> Please leave your comments letting me know how much you want to throttle me for torturing Charlotte and thanking me for punching Blayne you are welcome. 
> 
> Follow me @artemisodinson on tumblr.


	2. Satan's Last Laugh

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charlotte and co host a masquerade party

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here ya go chapitre deux! It had pretty much been worked out immediately after writing chapter 1 but it was unbeta'd and needed it badly. Please follow and send thanks to my betas sophiainspace and diana-prince-s

It had been six months since Isabella had been taken from Charlotte. The Wells’ Emporium of Pleasure was doing as fine as always --minus the 150 pounds Charlotte paid for ‘assaulting’ the Marquess during the Pleasure Garden.

 

There was still an ever-present hollowness in the pit of Charlotte’s stomach. It had been there since the day she screamed herself raw in the doorway of the house as she watched the carriage drive away.

 

After six months of occasional meaningless sex and the company of her siblings and her Pa, the hollowness had been quelled to a dull ache, but it was still there nonetheless. And Charlotte still thought of Isabella in nearly every moment she spent alone.

 

They were hosting a masquerade party tonight, much like the one her Ma had put on months before. That party felt like a lifetime ago, but it hadn’t even been a full year.

 

So much had changed. There were new girls in the house. Fanny being the only one who remained from the girls of that time. Lucy was actually allowed to be a temptress this time instead of some innocent jewel to be paraded around. And of course, Margaret Wells was no longer the bawd of the house.

 

Charlotte’s hands trembled as she went to put the mask her Ma had worn that night across her face. When her Pa had first suggested it, she had been horrified.

 

_“Pa! No! That mask was Ma’s. I couldn’t possibly. I feel it would tarnish her legacy.”_

_Her Pa just chuckled at her and placed it back in her hands._

_“Charlotte. You’re the bawd of the Wells’ Emporium now. And I have a feeling your Ma would’ve wanted you to wear it.”_

 

_He walked away then, leaving it in her hands._

_“And besides, you’ll look positively ravishing in it, my dear.”_

 

She tied the mask round her face and looked at herself in the mirror. She could have laughed at the sight. She never could fill out a dress the same way her Ma could, but Pa was right. She did look ravishing.

 

She walked downstairs where her Pa awaited her at the door.

 

“Everythin’s set up and ready then?” Lucy bounced around the corner then, dressed as Artemis this year.

 

“Everything’s fine Charlotte. This is going to be so much fun!” Charlotte beamed at her. Lucy had had a rough past few months as well and Charlotte couldn’t help but feel overjoyed at the sight of her sister genuinely happy about something.

Fanny walked up beside her then. “You sure you’re alright with me skipping out, Charlotte?”

 

Charlotte patted Fanny’s shoulder. “Of course, love. We all know Kitty ain’t sleepin’ through the night yet. We got plenty a girls here. Nance’s are here too, you know.” Fanny smiled cheekily then, making her way up the stairs to where her personal room was.

 

Charlotte grimaced slightly as she remembered that the night a few weeks back when Kitty had woken them all up and scared a few culls with her screaming. Fanny had been working that night. Hopefully by letting the babe sleep with her Ma, she would sleep more soundlessly.

 

There was a knock at the door. The first of the guests to arrive. Charlotte blew out a deep breath and readied her cull-fucking grin.

 

The doors opened and younger Lords poured in, each paying their tokens to her Pa. He was again dressed as the King of the Underworld as he had been at their previous party.

 

“Welcome, one and all, to Satan’s Underbelly! The very heart of the Underworld itself!” Jacob was playing the Ferryman, holding the box for the men to drop their coins into.

 

Charlotte laughed at her brother’s voice. It never got old to hear a young boy talk excitedly about the house when she knew he still didn’t have a full understanding of the exact nature of what they did.

 

The Queen of the Underworld watched from atop the stairs for a few more moments as more guests trickled in. She spotted a few that surprised her. She ran down the stairs to greet them.

 

“Fuck my old boots! Harriet Lennox. Here to steal some of my culls away?” Harriet was followed in by Nell and Cherry. They were all dressed perfectly for the occasion.

 

Harriet grinned at her. “Oh, I wouldn’t dare, my Queen! I’m even paying my way in.” The dark-skinned woman leaned in close to whisper into Charlotte’s ear.

 

“If you let my girls use some of your rooms tonight, I’ll give you half of the profits.” Charlotte grinned back at her. Her mother may have had a row with the woman, but Charlotte had never had any issues with the her.

 

“You know what? I’m feeling generous tonight. Go right ahead.” Harriet and her girls wandered into the heart of the already steaming room of sweating and writhing bodies.

 

“I’m holding you to that half, Harriet Lennox!” She turned back to the doorway where her brother and Pa stood. Both of them stood with grins that hid laughter behind their cheeks.

 

“What are you two lookin’ at? You got a job to do, don’t you?”

 

The night ended up being a huge success. They made nearly double what they had the year before, thanks in no small part to the addition of Harriet’s girls.

 

It was nearing early morning now. A few hours past midnight but just before the sunrise. Charlotte decided it was time to start removing her guests.

 

She found Rasselas asleep on the floor of the main area of the party. There were half dressed men and girls scattered around and she knew of a few more upstairs that needed kicking out as well.

 

“Rasselas” She nudged his sleeping form with her foot. He drunkenly slurred something about five more minutes.

 

She leaned down directly to his ear and raised her voice. “Rasselas!” He shot up, stumbling a moment before finding his footing.

 

“Mm..Charlotte..er..what?” Charlotte rolled her eyes. The boy had slept half the night and he was still half-drunk.

 

“Rasselas. I need you to help me remove the culls from the house.” The Eastern boy yawned and stretched his wiry frame.

 

“Mmmkay.” He wobbled clumsily around, shaking or kicking the forms of the men lying around. Charlotte, knowing the boy would get the job done within a reasonable amount of time, made her way upstairs.

 

She banged loudly on every door yelling at the men to leave and for the girls to get up. She cringed as she realized she had stupidly woken up Kitty Lambert as well and the babe began her screams.

 

_Well maybe that’ll help get the rest of ‘em out._

 

Nell came out of one of the rooms with her cull trailing behind her. Charlotte held out her hand. The woman rolled her eyes and handed over a few pounds. Charlotte looked at the amount. It probably wasn’t quite half but she wasn’t really in the mood to fight with Harriet Lennox or her girls.

 

The cull Nell had been with still had his pants around his ankles. “Oh, please, please, you exotic beauty just another hour!” He looked at Charlotte pleadingly.

 

“Don’t look at me ey. It’s my house but she ain’t my girl. You can sort out more time with her at her place.” The man’s eyes widened in excitement as he pulled his pants up around his waist and raced after Nell.

 

Charlotte moved to the very end of the hall. She knocked firmly on Fanny’s door. The large red-headed girl opened it, a still burbling Kitty in her arms.

 

“Fanny since I gave you the night off, I’m putting you in charge of getting the rest of the culls out and making sure whoever needs to pay does so.” Fanny nodded and made her way down the stairs, her baby clutched to her chest.

 

“Charlotte? What are you...?” Fanny’s voice trailed off. Charlotte sighed and rested her head on her bedroom door.

 

“I’ve been up all night, love. I’m just gonna nap a bit before the mornin’ culls start comin’ in.” She looked back and flashed a tired smile to Fanny before going into her room.

 

Charlotte flopped bonelessly onto her bed, falling asleep immediately.

 

Fanny Lambert had had a decent night all things considering. Kitty had slept fairly well even through all the ruckus. Charlotte did wake her a little earlier than she may have liked, but the Wells woman had worked hard that night.

 

Fanny sat at the breakfast table, counting the money as Charlotte had instructed. Lucy stumbled in and slumped into the chair next to Fanny. She was very clearly hungover as the girl crossed her arms onto the table and placed her head on them, groaning softly as she did so.

 

“Looks like you had a big night eh Luce?” Lucy looked up and smiled tiredly at her. “Yeah. Worked four culls. One of ‘em was just a wank though. Poor lad didn’t even last a minute of my hand.” They giggled together. They had all had culls like that.

 

“Where’s Pa and Jacob? And Charlotte for that matter?”

“Oh, well I know Charlotte’s taking a rest before the mornin’ culls start rollin’ in. Mr. North probably put Jacob to sleep earlier in the night.”

 

Lucy nodded her head slowly in acknowledgement. The girl was half asleep just sitting there. “Luce why don’t you go upstairs and sleep too?”

Lucy waved her off. “I’ll be fine. I’ll just make some tea or somethin’.”

 

There was a thundering knock at the door. Lucy looked drearily at Fanny and then at the babe in her arms. Fanny just flashed her an apologetic smile. The girl meandered off to see who was at the house. _Who is trying to come at this hour? The party is long over. And it was way too early for the morning culls._

 

A terrible scream ripped through the air. Fanny sprang up and shushed Kitty gently.

 

“Lucy! What is it?”

 

Lucy met her at the foot of the stairs in front of the doorway. She had a look in her eyes that was wild and fearful, so much so that it made Fanny gasp. Lucy grasped her shoulders and looked at her with those wild eyes. “Go check on her. I need to go get Charlotte.” Lucy’s voice was breathless and hard, like she’d been running for miles.

 

Lucy ran up the stairs, yelling for Charlotte the whole way up. Fanny stared dumbly for a moment before she remember the first of what Lucy had said. _Go check on her. Her who?_

 

It was then that she finally noticed the figure curled up in the doorway. Fanny walked over to it cautiously. She sat down in front of the figure which she now realized was a woman wearing only a rag and a hooded cloak.

 

The poor-looking woman stared ahead blankly, her eyes were glossy, as if they were un-seeing. Fanny gasped as she suddenly realized who this gaunt figure was.

 

She turned her head around as she saw Lucy pulling Charlotte along the stairs, the older girl trying to rub the sleep away from her eyes.

 

“Lucy what in all the holy fuckery…” Charlotte’s voice trailed off as she saw the woman next to Fanny. Of course Charlotte recognized her immediately.

 

Charlotte ran over to the woman, practically bowling over Fanny and Kitty in the process.

 

“Oh, God. Oh, God.” Charlotte’s voice was barely recognizable through her sobs as she trailed her hands over the woman’s face and arms. The dark-haired girl gently pushed the hood away from the woman’s face.

 

She clutched the woman to her chest. Fanny watched them both sadly and noted that through the whole thing, the poor woman in Charlotte’s arms hadn’t even reacted to any of them being there. It was like she was a shell.

 

“I heard all the yellin’! What the devil is going on here?” Mr. North’s footsteps boomed down the stairs following his voice.

 

“Pa.” Lucy’s voice cracked as she began to cry, placing her hands on top of his and nodded her head towards the doorway. The dark-skinned man looked to the doorway where his other daughter sat. Still sobbing and clutching onto the woman.

 

“Oh sweet God above. Is that...” Fanny could only nod dumbly in response. _Lady Fitz._  

 


	3. A Stolen Soul

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charlotte helps Isabella bathe and dress following finding her at her doorstep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is rough y'all. If you are triggered by panic attack scenes, there is an asterisk marking the beginning of the scene and three asterisks marking the end. This story still has a lot more angst to go so just bear with me.

Charlotte took heaving, sobbing breaths as she clutched Isabella to her chest. She could feel the tears streaming down her cheeks, unable to control any of her emotions at the sight of her love in this state after all these months. 

 

She pulled back to look at the woman. She tentatively raised her hands and clasped Isabella’s face to look at her. The older woman’s face was clammy and cold, with cheeks that were sunken in slightly from malnourishment. 

 

She tilted the Lady’s face to look at her eyes and loudly sobbed at what she saw. Isabella’s eyes rimmed with dark circles, as though she hadn’t slept for days or weeks. But that wasn’t what had caused Charlotte to cry out. 

 

Isabella’s eyes were glossy and had a vague unseeing haze to them. Not like Florence Scanwell’s blindness. It was as though Isabella was still able to see, but her mind was blank and refused to process what it was she saw. 

 

“Isabella?” Charlotte pleaded softly. “Isabella it’s me. Charlotte.” The older woman’s eyes nor body reacted to Charlotte’s words at all. Charlotte could no longer see through her own tears and just placed her forehead against Isabella’s. “Please...please” She continued to mouth the words soundlessly. 

 

Charlotte jumped as she felt a hand on her shoulder. She turned to look up with watery eyes. She wiped the tears from her eyes to see the figure of her Pa over her. His eyes were watery as well but likely out of sympathy for her. 

 

“Charlotte let me carry her upstairs. She needs to bathe and change.” Charlotte choked and placed her hand over her mouth to bite back from crying out a sob. She nodded and backed away reluctantly. Will leaned in gingerly and scooped the woman up. 

 

*Charlotte stood up slowly and wiped her tears, raking a hand through her sweaty hair.  _ Did that really just happen? Has Isabella really been brought back to me?  _

 

She started breathing harder.  _ What was wrong with her? Why wasn’t she responding to me? What if she’s forgotten about me? What if her brother finds she’s no longer in the institution? What did they do to her? What did they DO to her?  _ The air felt like it was suddenly sucked from the room. 

 

Charlotte leaned against the wall for support as she gasped for breath. She could vaguely hear her sister’s voice saying her name but it was muffled beneath the sounds of her thoughts.  _ What am I going to do? How can I take care of her and keep her safe and run Ma’s house? What did they do to her?  _

 

“CHARLOTTE!” Lucy’s hands had grasped Charlotte’s upper arms firmly. Charlotte continued her heaving breaths, still feeling as though she couldn’t draw in enough air. Her sister’s soft hands grasped her force Charlotte to look at her. The vision of her sister was hazy. 

 

“Charlotte please just breathe with me.” Lucy grasped Charlotte’s hand and drew it to her chest. Charlotte focused on the feel of her sister’s heart beneath her and closed her eyes. She let herself breathe in more slowly and could smell Lucy’s delicate scent. Even after all the work Lucy had done as a harlot, she still somehow maintained the sweet natural scent she had as a babe.*** 

 

Charlotte finally was able to take in slow deep breaths. She opened her eyes. Her sister’s hazel eyes stared back at her with soft concern. Charlotte offered her a weak smile. 

 

“I’m alright Sprout.” Lucy gave her a half-hearted grin. They both moved to go upstairs to assess Isabella. 

 

They passed Fanny on their way who still stood in the foyer with Kitty in her arms, a bit dumbstruck by the whole thing herself. Lucy called to her as they walked by “Er Fanny? Maybe close up the to culls for the day ey?”

 

Fanny nodded her head so quickly Charlotte thought it may snap right off. 

 

Lucy held Charlotte to her their whole way up the stairs. Will was standing at the end of the hallway with Lady Isabella still in his arms. The woman looked so frail it was unlikely the weight of her was much of a burden to him at this point. 

 

Lucy began to speak in a hushed tone. “Charlotte. And Pa you’ll want to hear this too.” Charlotte looked up weakly at her sister. 

 

“When I answered the door, there were a few men that just shoved Lady Fitz in.” Charlotte was still feeling weak and shaky from her emotional burst downstairs, but she could feel the anger simmer in the pit of her stomach. 

 

Lucy looked at her slowly and spoke her next words hesitantly. “And they said ‘Here’s a gift from the Marquess of Blayne.’” 

“What?!” Both Charlotte and her Pa had spoken at the same time. Charlotte clenched her jaw in anger. “What else Lucy?” 

 

Lucy’s eyes cast downward nervously. She pulled a piece of paper from her pocket. “They also handed me this. It’s addressed to you Charlotte.” 

 

Charlotte snatched the letter from her. “Why didn’t you say anything about this before?” Charlotte knew her words sounded harsher than intended, but hopefully Lucy understood that her anger was not directed at the younger girl. 

 

Charlotte opened the letter with her shaking hands. 

 

_ My dearest Charlotte Wells,  _

_After a rather expensive six months keeping my sister secure in Bedlam, I grew tired of   wasting the money and withdrew her. What an awful sight I was met with. Izzy looked positively wretched. I have neither the time nor the energy to care for her so I figured I could gift her to you, as you seemed so fond of her in the weeks in which you conspired with her against my dear friend Lydia Quigley. Please let her know how much I enjoy spending time with her daughter._

 

_ Harcourt Fitzwilliam, Marquess of Blayne _

 

Charlotte was vibrating with anger by the time she got to the end. Lucy peered over her shoulder. “Well, what did it say? Who was it from?” 

 

Charlotte tore the letter in half and threw it to the ground. “Let’s get Isabella to a bath Pa.” 

 

Will nodded. Charlotte pushed past him to open the door to the wash-room ahead and let he and the precious cargo his arms through. 

 

“Lucy draw up a bath.” Lucy nodded and raced around the room to ready the wash basin. 

 

Charlotte finally drew up the courage to look at Isabella again. She walked up closer to where she was curled into her Pa’s arms. 

 

Isabella’s eyes were still had that same glossy and unfocused haze that they had before. There wasn’t a bit of emotion in them whatsoever. Charlotte felt a lump rise up in her throat as she took a hand to gently push her love’s hair past her face. 

 

It was clear that the institution didn’t have much care for hygiene. Isabella was covered in soot and dirt. She didn’t smell of urine or feces luckily but the sweet scent of her Charlotte remembered was masked by sweat and the unwashed clothes she wore. The older woman’s hair looked as though it hadn’t been touched in months. It was a good six inches longer than her natural hair had been before she left and positively riddled with tangles and mats. 

“She’s so light love. Maybe even lighter than Jacob.” Charlotte looked up into her Pa’s soft brown eyes.  _ He’s such a good man.  _ Charlotte thought to herself as she brushed Isabella’s sallow cheeks with the back of her hand.  _ He barely knows this woman but he knows I love her. And he knows she needs our compassion after what she’s been through.  _

 

Charlotte knew of many men around her that would have simply tossed the woman back into the street at the sight of her. 

 

“Charlotte? Bath’s ready.” Charlotte looked to her and nodded her appreciation. 

 

“Alright Pa set ‘er down. Lucy and I will undress ‘er and give her a nice bath and clean clothes and…” Her voice trailed off. She didn’t actually know what she was going to do past that. 

 

“Love. I don’t know that she can stand on her own.”  _ Damn.  _ Her Pa was right. Isabella didn’t look like she could even walk, much less stand long enough for Lucy and Charlotte to undress her. 

 

“Okay well. C’mere Luce.” Charlotte readied herself in front of her Pa. “Pa, you’re gonna set ‘er down and I’ll support ‘er while Lucy gets her undressed.” They both nodded to her plan. 

 

Will carried the woman up next to the basin and began to gently lower Isabella’s thin legs to the ground. Charlotte braced herself to catch the woman. As she suspected, Isabella’s legs wobbled a moment and she fell forward. Charlotte was already there to support her weight. 

 

_ Pa was right. Bet she barely weighs what Jacob does.  _ As Will left the room, Charlotte held onto Isabella as steadily as she could. Lucy untied the cloak around the older woman’s neck and let it fall to the floor. 

 

The only item of clothing Isabella had on was a poor excuse for a chemise made of torn, old rags. Lucy gently lifted the chemise from below the Lady’s knees. Charlotte heard her sister gasp sharply. “What is it Sprout?” 

 

Lucy continued to move the chemise further until she reached where Charlotte’s hands were supporting Isabella’s weight. Charlotte moved her hands down further to allow Lucy to lift the chemise over Isabella’s head. 

 

Charlotte suddenly realized why Lucy had gasped so sharply when she first started removing the clothing. Isabella was absolutely  _ covered  _ in bruises. Small ones mostly but some were larger and a deep ugly purple. She then realized that Isabella’s wrists and ankles were both bruised and the skin worn down to an ugly red. 

 

_ What in the ever living son of cock were they doing in that institution?  _

 

Charlotte leaned over and gently lowered Isabella into the water. There was still no sign of recognition or reaction from the woman this entire time. 

 

Charlotte pushed her sleeves up and began to lather soap into a washcloth underwater. She grasped one of Isabella’s arms, deciding to ignore studying the woman’s battered and raw wrist. 

 

“What do you want me to do Charlotte?” Charlotte had almost forgotten Lucy was still in there. She was so focused on the woman in front of her. 

 

“Go and grab a brush from somewhere and brush her hair for me love.” With that, Charlotte was left alone with Isabella. 

 

So many months of longing to see the woman again and be alone with her should have made Charlotte glad to finally have a moment alone, but as she looked up again at the woman’s face her heart broke all over again. 

 

Isabella’s eyes were still transfixed on nothing. She hadn’t been blinded in there, Charlotte noted her pupils reacting to the light of the room. But the woman’s eyes were emotionless and blank. 

 

“Isabella?” Charlotte continued to wash the woman’s hand and arm gently and then moved up her arm to her face. She brought the washcloth to her beloved’s face and began to gently wipe away the soot caked on it. 

 

“Isabella, please. It’s Charlotte. I’m here. You’re not in that place anymore.” She grasped the woman’s chin gently to turn it to her own. Still the older woman’s eyes just...looked through her. Unreactive at all. “You’re safe here.” 

 

She set the washcloth on the side of the tub. She grasped her beloved by the nape of her neck and pulled their foreheads together. 

 

“Isabella. I love you..so much” Her voice cracked at the ‘you’. 

 

“I found a brush! It’s yours. I hope you don’t mi-” Charlotte let Isabella’s head fall back again to its lifeless state. 

 

“I can leave Charlotte if you want to be alone.” Charlotte sniffed and wiped her tears away with the side of her hand. “No Sprout. Let’s help her together.”

 

Lucy walked tentatively over to the end of the tub. Charlotte watched as her sister gently pulled Isabella’s long wet hair from where it lay and begin to brush through the tangles and mats. 

 

Charlotte grabbed the washcloth and began again to gently wipe away the grime and soot from Isabella’s body. 

The pair of them worked together in silence for a few minutes. “Charlotte?” Charlotte looked up from her ministrations on her Lady’s body. 

 

“How did you even meet Lady Fitz?” Charlotte cracked a smile at the memory. 

 

“Well you know Dame Death holds everyone’s damn secrets. When she needed money when she was imprisoned by Justice Hunt she sent me to Isabella to press her for the money.” 

 

Lucy hmmed in acknowledgement, continuing to work her way through the litany of tangles in Isabella’s hair. 

 

“I walked into the Blayne manor and the two of ‘em, Isabella and that wretched brother of ‘ers were hosting some sort of get together.” Charlotte actually laughed a little when she started on the next bit. 

 

“Isabella immediately began to slander me to her ‘friends’ calling me a ‘brazen strumpet’ and ‘who dares to insult me with this woman’s presence?’” Lucy laughed at her sister’s attempt at the Lady’s proper accent. 

 

“Well I managed to draw ‘er away from the party and…” Charlotte blew out a breath and gave a wry grin to her sister. 

 

“It was like she was a totally different person. The tone of ‘er voice, the way she looked at me. She even sor’ of apologized for what she said. Called her life a sham.” Charlotte sighed softly then. Stopping her washing of Isabella’s leg to look at her face. 

 

“Even within minutes of mee’ing ‘er I knew she was afraid of her brother.” She looked up at Lucy, the girl had stopped brushing to simply listen. 

 

“When I asked for the money, there was this immediate fear in ‘er eyes. I’d seen it in women before. Women that had been beaten or hurt by the men in their lives.” Her gaze dropped again to look at Isabella’s lifeless visage. She couldn’t stop herself from reaching out a hand to caress the woman’s face. 

 

“If I had had the power then. I’ve I’da known. I woulda pulled her from that manor right then and there and just ran away with ‘er.” She pulled away from her beloved’s face and slapped her hands to her knees, standing up in the process. 

 

“Go fetch ‘er some clothes. She’s a bit taller than most of the girls but just get something that’s clean and comfortable.” Lucy nodded slowly and headed out the door, leaving Charlotte alone again with her beloved. 

  
  


Lucy stepped out the door and closed it behind her gently. She wiped the tears that had fallen unbidden from hearing her sister’s broken voice and looked up. Her Pa stood leaning against a wall, clearly waiting for them to finish Lady Fitz’s bath. 

 

“How is she?” Lucy stared at him a moment. “Who? Lady Fitz or Charlotte?” Her Pa sighed softly. “Well both I suppose.” 

 

Lucy looked back at the door to the room where Charlotte and Lady Fitz were. “Charlotte’s, well, I think she’s still just recovering from the shock Pa.” Lucy blew out a hard breath. “But Lady Fitz, Pa I’ve never seen anything like it.”

 

“I have. In a way.” Lucy looked up at him, a solemn look crossed over his eyes. “In young men. Returned from war. Many are shattered and broken from it. Even if they were never wounded.”

 

Lucy looked at him a moment longer, curiously. He went on. “It’s like their bodies are still alive. Their limbs and organs still functionin’ but…” He trailed off, unable to meet his daughter’s eyes. 

 

“It’s like their very souls have just abandoned them.”

 


	4. Nightmares and Daydreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Isabella makes slow progress towards being herself again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a lot shorter than the last one but A LOT happens. Sorry in advance.

Two weeks. It had been two whole weeks since Charlotte’s beloved had arrived on their doorstep and there had still been no significant change in Isabella’s behavior. 

 

Charlotte spent her days spoon feeding and forcing the older woman to drink, something Isabella was luckily actually responsive to. But it was still in a mindless way. As though Isabella’s body was just going through the motions in being offered food and drink. Charlotte just felt blessed that Isabella somehow still knew to use the chamber pot. The first day, after her Pa had carried Isabella to her bed to sleep, part of her wondered if she would check on her later to find a wet bed. 

 

Charlotte had busied herself that day tidying up the house. Checking on Isabella every few hours. She came in once to find that Isabella was no longer sleeping but curled up with her knees to her chest, like a child. Charlotte dashed over to her. “Isabella?” But still nothing. The woman sat as she was, staring at nothingness, and certainly paying no attention to Charlotte’s presence.

 

Charlotte discovered the older woman must have awoken to use the chamber pot. She marveled at the fact that the woman was still able to do that on her own, based on what she had seen thus far. 

 

Charlotte was leaning now against the doorway to her own bedroom, watching the woman sleep. It was nearing midnight. She felt a small chin nestle into her neck. “Hey Sprout.” Her sister’s small arms wrapped around her waist gently. “Still no change in Lady Fitz?” 

 

Charlotte sighed dejectedly. She bit her lip and looked up, forcing herself not to cry. “No. Nothing.” She turned in her sister’s arms and embraced her, setting her chin on top of Lucy’s dark blonde head. 

 

“I don’t know what to do Sprout. Sometimes the urge comes over me to scream at ‘er or slap ‘er or somethin’. Anythin’ to get some sor’ of reaction out of ‘er.” She could feel Lucy’s nod and her ‘hmm’ of acknowledgement. 

 

They both pulled away from the embrace, Lucy still held one of Charlotte’s hands in her own. They turned together to watch the sleeping figure on the bed. Charlotte yawned. “When’s the last time you slept Charlotte?” Charlotte blinked drearily. “I dunno. Monday maybe.” 

 

“Charlotte!” Her sister smacked her arm with the back of her hand. “You’re no use to the Lady if you’re sleep deprived!” Charlotte smiled at her sister fondly. “Yeah guess you’re right Sprout.” 

 

Lucy peered into Charlotte’s bedroom. “You just been sleepin’ on the bed with ‘er?” Charlotte waved her hand dismissively. “Me bein’ there never affects anythin’”

 

“Alright then. Off to bed with you!” Charlotte gave her sister a fond smile and kissed the top of her head. She walked into her bedroom and closed the door. She dressed down to her night chemise and laid on the bed. She turned to watch her beloved. She reached out a hand and caressed her arm gently. “I love you so much Isabella.” She felt sleep start to overcome her, her last vision being Isabella asleep soundly. 

 

Charlotte woke to a hand slapping on her arm sharply. She shot up with a gasp and turned to see Isabella thrashing around wildly in a nightmarish fit. “Isabella!” The older woman was flailing erratically, as if fighting off some unknown assailant, whimpers of despair falling from her lips. 

 

_ She’s gonna hurt herself if I can’t wake her.  _ Charlotte straddled the woman quickly and pinned down her forearms. “Isabella wake up! You’re safe! Please stop!” The older woman’s eyes snapped open suddenly. 

 

Charlotte watched horrified as her beloved’s eyes filled with unbidden rage and fear. The woman beneath her began to yell and thrash, trying to get Charlotte off of her. Charlotte called her name desperately over the woman’s enraged raw screams. “Isabella! Isabella stop! It’s me! IT’S CHARLOTTE! You’re safe here!” The woman’s screams slowly turned to sobs as her thrashing slowed. It was evident her frail body had tired itself quickly. 

 

Charlotte heard her bedroom door slam open. She turned her head to see her Pa and Lucy in the doorway. “Charlotte..what..” her sister began. Both of them were stunned silent by what they saw. 

 

Charlotte’s attention immediately returned to Isabella. She still had the woman pinned, but Isabella’s head was turned. The woman still sobbing uncontrollably. Charlotte leaned into her face gently and saw the woman flinch away from her. Charlotte began to cry softly, voice breaking as she tried to comfort the woman. “Isabella please..please..it’s me..please..please” 

 

She felt a firm hand on her shoulder. She turned her head slowly to see her Pa. “Charlotte. She can’t recognize that it’s you. And you’re scarin’ her.” Charlotte looked back down to her beloved and pulled her hands away suddenly as if she’d been burned. She got off the woman and stood next to the bed. 

 

Charlotte watched in horrified confusion as Isabella’s hands shot to her face to cover her eyes as the woman curled into herself in a fetal position. Charlotte felt herself sob helplessly and she choked into her own hand. 

 

She felt strong arms wrap around her and she buried her face into her Pa’s chest. She sobbed against him for what felt like hours. She finally composed herself long enough to pull away from him. 

 

She glanced to the bed. It seemed her beloved had worn herself out and was back asleep again. The older woman was still curled into herself slightly. Charlotte choked back against crying out again. 

 

Lucy approached her then and rubbed her back gently. She felt her sister take her hand. Charlotte let herself be pulled away downstairs, a numb feeling in her chest. 

 

Lucy sat her down at the dining room table. Her Pa sat down next to her. Charlotte leaned against the table, hands rubbing against her temple, trying to process what had just happened. 

 

Her sister placed a glass of water in front of her and Charlotte snatched it, drinking it all in one go. 

 

The three of them sat in silence for a few more tense moments. Her Pa placed a comforting hand on her back and spoke gently. “Charlotte. Do you know what happened up there?” 

 

“I woke up because Isabella was thrashin’ in ‘er sleep and hit me.” Charlotte removed a hand from her temple, waving it around as she spoke. “I thought she was gonna hurt ‘erself so I tried to pin ‘er down and wake ‘er up but…” Charlotte’s eyes filled with tears again at the memory of the look of fear and rage in her beloved’s eyes when she woke. 

 

“You don’t have to go on Charlotte. We heard and saw enough to know what happened from there.” Her Pa’s soft voice was comforting. She looked up at him with watery eyes. “I-I don’t know what to do Pa. What if this happens again? What if waking from nightmares is the only time I’ll ever see emotion in her eyes forever?” 

 

The dark-skinned man continued to rub her back gently. “It won’t be like this forever Charlotte.” Charlotte slammed her fists down on the table in anger, making her sister in front of her jump. “You don’t know that! You don’t know anythin’ more than I do about how to fix this!” She fixed her Pa with a hard gaze she knew he didn’t deserve, but her control over her emotions was wearing thin.

 

“We still have to try Charlotte.” Her sister’s voice was soft, abating Charlotte’s anger slightly. Charlotte’s head fell in her hands again. “She’s right love. We’ll keep doin’ what we can. We’ll keep doin’ our best. That’ll have to be good enough.” Charlotte just silently nodded into her hands. 

 

Isabella’s nightmarish emotional outburst was a turning point in her behavior. She no longer spent the days either sleeping or sitting and staring into nothingness. Often she would pace around Charlotte’s room, looking at the walls as though she was trying to figure out where she was. Charlotte caught her once or twice standing at the window staring out into the street. She still spent many hours sleeping however. Her body was obviously still in need of recovery.

 

She was still unreactive to her name, but she would flinch slightly at loud noises and sometimes, Charlotte thought the woman was actually looking at her. 

 

Her eyes did seem slightly less glassy these days. And they would flick up when a person would walk into the room. 

 

Charlotte talked to her every chance she got. She would brush her beloved’s hair and talk about some dumb cull she had had to deal with that day. She would feed her and tell her a story about her childhood. 

 

Isabella slowly began to react to touch. Charlotte almost cried the day the woman leaned her cheek slightly into Charlotte’s caress. 

 

About four weeks after the horrific nightmare, Charlotte decided one evening to bring her downstairs for a late dinner. “Isabella. We’re gonna eat dinner together at the dining room today.” She told the woman as she gently pulled her long brown hair into a low hanging ponytail. 

 

She took the woman’s arm gingerly and began to lead her out of her room. Charlotte smiled at her softly when she let herself be lead down the stairs and to the table. 

 

She sat her down at the table and turned to fix two bowls of porridge. She was starved so she sat Isabella’s down in front of her, intending on feeding her after she scarfed down a few bites of her own porridge. “Lemme eat a few bites first love, then I’ll take care of you.” 

 

She was in the middle of her third bite when Isabella stood up. She paused, spoon still in her mouth, and watched the woman walk over to the sink, pick up a spoon for herself and move back to her chair. Charlotte still didn’t move as she watched the older woman start wolfing down spoonfuls of porridge. 

 

Charlotte finally pulled the spoon from her mouth and swallowed. She continued to simply stare at Isabella eating for a few minutes before she smiled fondly at the woman. “Guess I wasn’t the only one who was starved ey?” Isabella still showed no sign of reaction to her words. Charlotte sighed softly. 

 

“Charlotte! And er Lady Fitz!” Fanny had walked in with Kitty in her arms. Charlotte saw Isabella’s eyes flit up to see who walked in then immediately resume eating. “Glad to see both of you joinin’ us!” Charlotte smiled at Fanny then back at Isabella, who had just finished her bowl and gingerly set her spoon down beside it. 

 

Charlotte noted then that Isabella’s eyes were transfixed on something in the room, she followed her gaze and saw that the woman was staring at Kitty Lambert. The toddler was almost a year old now, resting firmly on her mother’s hip. 

 

Charlotte watched as her beloved’s eyes turned watery. The woman turned her head down, suddenly very interested in her hands. Charlotte reached over and stroked the older woman’s face with the back of her hand. 

 

She went to pull her hand away when a timid hand reached up to clasp the one she had used to caress her cheek. Charlotte watched, wide-eyed, as Isabella wordlessly stood up and pulled Charlotte with her. 

 

Fanny gaped at them and Charlotte shrugged her shoulders in confusion as Isabella continued to lead her up the stairs. 

 

They arrived at Charlotte’s bedroom. Isabella still had not turned her head or acknowledged Charlotte’s existence in anyway beyond her soft grip on Charlotte’s hand. 

 

Isabella opened the door and pulled Charlotte onto the bed with her. She laid down onto her back wordlessly and closed her eyes. Charlotte laid down with her, their hands still clasped. She stayed for a few more minutes until she thought the woman was asleep. She gently unclasped their hands and leaned forward to kiss Isabella on the forehead softly. 

 

_ I can’t believe how much progress she made today!  _ Charlotte was reaching for the door handle when she heard her. The voice she hadn’t heard in nearly eight months was rough and weak from underuse. “Charlotte.” Charlotte whipped her head around so quickly she became dizzy for a moment. 

 

Her beloved had her head turned, facing her, eyes open and looking right  _ at  _ Charlotte. “Charlotte Please. Stay with me.” Isabella extended her hand and patted the bed beside her. Charlotte stood still in utter shock for a moment before she all but threw herself on the bed and into Isabella’s arms. 

 

The older woman let out a soft ‘oof’ but Charlotte was hardly listening. She sobbed into her beloved’s chest as she felt tentative hands wrap around her and give her a soft squeeze.  _ She’s finally my Isabella again. _

  
  


Isabella Fitzwilliam lay still on the warm bed beneath her. Charlotte Wells was sleeping hard in her arms. Isabella stared up and the ceiling and then turned her head to the window. She closed her eyes and relished in the sounds of the London night and the feeling of Charlotte in her arms. 

  
She felt her heart begin to race suddenly and she took a deep shuddering breath.  _ I’m not there anymore. I’m with Charlotte. I’m safe here. I’m safe here. I’m safe here.  _ The mantra continued in her head until she herself finally succumbed to sleep. 


	5. Visions of Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Isabella explains some of what happened in the asylum and her mind the last six weeks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From here on the chapters will have some of both Charlotte's and Isabella's perspectives. Also, this chapter deals heavily with some discussions of psychological trauma and we begin to see some effects of PTSD.

Charlotte slept more soundly that night than she had since Isabella had been taken from her. Nestled in her beloved’s chest, feeling her soft hands rub comfortingly on her back, she felt more at peace than she could hardly remember being. 

 

She woke in the morning, disappointed to find that Isabella was no longer in bed with her. She blinked her eyes drearily and reached up a hand to rub the sleep away. The older woman was standing and leaning against her window. Her long hair was still in the same low ponytail it had been the night before.

 

“Isabella?” Her voice was still sleep-roughened. Charlotte took delight in the way that the woman before her turned around to face her immediately. “You’re awake. I thought you may sleep through lunch darling.” 

 

The older woman’s face was passive. Her entire body looked tired and weary, and her eyes, while they were most certainly not the same hazy unseeing horror they had been, barely betrayed any emotion. 

 

Isabella turned to face the window again. Charlotte was a bit puzzled by her strange behavior. Last night she had felt so positive that Isabella was back to at least relative norm, but the woman was still not acting remotely like the woman she had once known.  “Charlotte. How long have I been here?” Charlotte stood then from the bed, noting dumbly that she was still wearing the same dress she had been the day before.

 

She walked over to stand in front of the older woman. “A little over six weeks.” She reached out to touch her beloved’s arm gently. “Isabella.” The woman turned her face to Charlotte. Charlotte bit back a gasp as she met eyes with the woman in front of her. 

 

They were so still. So emotionless. As though someone had drained the light from them. She reached up to caress the older woman’s face and was glad to see the woman close her eyes and seem to savor the comfort for a moment. Her beloved brought up her own hand to keep Charlotte’s on her cheek. 

 

“Isabella.” Charlotte started again. “When you first came to us,” Charlotte flinched at the memory of that first night, the first initial shock of seeing the shell that her beloved had been forced into at the institution. “You were...I thought for a long time you would never speak or acknowledge my existence again.” The older woman sighed softly, her detached eyes opening once more. 

 

Isabella pulled her hand away from Charlotte’s slowly, but Charlotte caught it and took it gently into both of her own. She kissed the older woman’s hand adoringly. That action brought out a small amount of emotion into Isabella’s eyes, a brief flicker of fondness that faded away quickly. 

 

Charlotte pulled her gently to sit together on the edge of the bed. She interlaced her hand with one of Isabella’s, unable to fully pull herself away from all the physical contact she was suddenly able to give and get reaction from. The older woman looked down at their connected hands and closed her eyes again before speaking. “I hadn’t fully realized I had been here for much longer than one or two weeks Charlotte.” 

 

Charlotte looked at the woman, puzzled by her words. She squeezed their hands together comfortingly, urging the older woman to explain. “When I was...when I was  _ there.  _ After the first few weeks, I began having visions of people I knew. Visions of Lydia Quigley. Sophia. Harcourt. Anyone I had ever known in my life haunted me in that place.” 

 

Isabella opened her eyes again and locked eyes with Charlotte. “I had more visions of you than anyone else Charlotte. Hallucinations of you, your smell, your touch. There were many times when the face of my handler, a woman of perhaps 30, her face and voice morphed into yours.”

 

Charlotte just watched the woman dumbfounded, horrified at what she was hearing. “I just made myself start ignoring them Charlotte. I knew they weren’t real. But it didn’t make them go away or stop. It came to the point where every waking moment I had there was full of visions of things that weren’t there.” 

It dawned on Charlotte suddenly, with sickening revulsion, where her beloved was going with this story. “I’m sure when I was first brought to you Charlotte, I simply ignored that you were there because for the past months, seeing or hearing you meant nothing.”  

 

“Then, probably for the best, you kept me here in your room only except to bathe me. I thought my mind had just fully...broken. That it was granting me peace somehow in the form of even more pleasant and realistic visions.” Charlotte stood up from the bed sharply, suddenly feeling more sick than before. 

 

“Charlotte what are you..?” Charlotte threw the window open and immediately became sick, losing the porridge she had eaten for dinner last night out into the London street.

 

She felt Isabella’s tentative hand on her back. “I-I’m sorry...I hadn’t realized my words would upset you so much.” Charlotte wiped her mouth with the back of her sleeve. “Keep going love, I’m needed to change my clothes anyway.”

 

“Very well.” Charlotte all but ripped her dress off. Isabella had seen her naked before so it wasn’t like she needed to put up a pretense of modesty. She went to her closet and began to pick a new dress, hearing the squeak of the bed that signaled the older woman had sat back down onto the bed. 

 

“I’m sure you recall the nightmare you had to wake me up from not long ago.” Charlotte could almost laugh. Yeah she “recalled” that horrid experience. Not like it hadn’t plagued her with guilt every day since. Isabella continued. “That was the turning point in my mind. I had nightmares quite frequently when I was  _ there _ . And they would handle it similar to how you tried to, pinning me down to keep me from hurting myself.” 

 

Charlotte felt her breath catch and her eyes fill with guilty tears. The older woman continued speaking. “However, while  _ there  _ they would put a rag of some sort over my face and force me back into an unpleasant sleep, which I loathed. That is why I thrashed and screamed so in your face Charlotte. I still thought I was  _ there  _ and was awaiting being forced into sleep.” 

 

Charlotte suddenly felt hands on her shoulders, turning her around. She was still crying softly. Isabella brought a hand to her face to wipe away her tears. “But  _ you  _ didn’t do that Charlotte. You were simply speaking to me gently, with words and tone they had never used with me. That was when it dawned on me that  _ maybe.  _ Maybe I wasn’t  _ there  _ anymore.” 

 

Charlotte grasped the hand on her cheek and turned her face into her beloved’s hand, kissing it gently. “When I awoke the next morning, I began to explore your room more. I was noting the details of the walls that simply weren’t in my hallucinations before.” The older woman sighed gently. 

 

“That is also when you began speaking and telling me stories of your day and your life Charlotte. When I was  _ there,  _ the only things I heard from you were sick repetitions of conversations we had had before.” Charlotte watched as her beloved pulled away and crossed her arms around herself. 

 

“Then last night, when you took me from your room, and into the downstairs dining room table. I was on the verge of total acceptance that I was no longer  _ there.  _ That I was with you. That I was safe.” Isabella paced the room slowly as she said this. 

 

“The breaking point was seeing that baby in that girl’s arms. I had never once seen a vision of a baby like that.” Charlotte saw her beloved turn around again to face Charlotte again, standing in the middle of the room. “It came upon me all at once then. That was why I began to cry. I was so relieved that this.” the woman waved her hand around the room for emphasis. “ _ This _ truly was real.” 

 

Charlotte choked back a sob. She moved forward quickly to once again bury herself in her beloved’s bosom and cry. Charlotte cried for a good few minutes while Isabella simply held her in her loving arms. 

 

“Come Charlotte. Let us go get something to eat. I’m sure the others of your house will want to know that I am a bit more myself again.” Charlotte sniffled slightly. “I still need to change into another dress Isabella.” 

 

“I’ll go down by myself then. I’m sure it’ll stir up quite the shock.” Charlotte smiled back, amused at Isabella’s teasing. “Yes, a scandalous affair I’m quite sure.” 

 

The corners of Isabella’s mouth curved up imperceptibly and the woman turned to head out of the room. Charlotte went forward to her closet and laid her head on the cool wood.  _ Everything’s going to be fine. _

 

  
  


Isabella walked down the stairs slowly, her leg muscles were certainly still quite weak from being forced to sit and sleep for so many months so she leaned heavily on the rail next to her. 

 

There was a dark-skinned man and a dark blonde haired girl of perhaps 15 or 16 speaking at the bottom of the stairs. Isabella had met the dark man before.  _ William North.  _ Margaret Wells’ lover. She did not recognize the younger girl at first but then she realized this was Lucy, Charlotte’s younger sister. She had seen her only once. The night Isabella had been taken. 

 

They clearly heard her coming down the stairs. Their conversation trailed off as they realized who it was walking down the stairs to greet them.  _ Alone, even.  _

 

The young Wells girl stood there with her mouth hanging open slightly in shock. Mr. North tried to stammer out a greeting. “L-Lady F-Fitz wh-where..” Isabella forced herself to smile at them slightly. “Ms. Wells. Mr. North. Good morning. Charlotte is currently getting dressed. I am sure she will follow in a few moments.” 

 

Isabella her legs wobble slightly as she reached the end of the staircase. “Lady Fitz! Let me escort you to the table.” Charlotte’s younger sister extended her elbow for Isabella to lean on. Isabella nodded her thanks to the younger girl. 

 

Isabella sat at the dining room table wearily, breathing heavily. She clenched her fists in slight anger and embarrassment. Her body was so weakened from  _ that place.  _

 

“Can I fix you some breakfast Lady Fitz? We have a few eggs and spiced bread.” Isabella looked up at the girl wearily. She found herself studying her for a moment. She was a cute young woman, but she really looked nothing like Charlotte.  _ They both must take after their different fathers.  _

 

“Yes I-” “Luce, Lord Gibson is here for you.” It was the round-cheeked red headed woman.  _ Fanny?  _ Isabella blanched for a moment. Then it dawned on her again where she was. This was a brothel, of course Lucy was a harlot and had her culls. 

 

“It’s alright Sprout. I’ll make sure Isabella is well fed.” Charlotte spoke from the doorway, dressed finally in a ridiculously low necked outfit, not unlike what Margaret Wells use to wear.  _ Margaret Wells was dead. Charlotte must be the bawd of the house now.  _

 

She watched as Charlotte smiled fondly at her and moved to make some eggs. Isabella felt a knot in the pit of her stomach. Before being taken, a smile like that would have made her heart flutter with excitement and pleasure.  _ Nothing. I feel...nothing.  _

 

She looked down at her hands in her lap.  _ What is wrong with me? I should be overjoyed to be back with Charlotte again. I love her. She saved me.  _

 

“Isabella? Something the matter love?” Charlotte’s voice was full of careful concern.  _ I shouldn’t make her worry about me. Not after what I have made her suffer these last six weeks.  _

 

She forced herself to smile at the younger woman with what she hoped was fondness. “I’m alright Charlotte.” They locked eyes for a few moments more, Charlotte beaming at her with adoration the entire time. The younger woman broke the connection and turned back around to continue fixing Isabella’s breakfast. 

 

Isabella thought for a moment about Charlotte’s younger sister Lucy. She was about the same age as…. _ Wait.  _

 

“Charlotte.” “Hmm?” “Charlotte where is my daughter?”


	6. Lost Under the Surface

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charlotte tells Isabella about Sophia and we see Isabella go through a much needed catharsis.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! This chapter is a real doozy but hopefully, HOPEFULLY the one that is the last that is just utterly angst filled. If you are easily triggered by self harm, please do not read Isabella's portion at all. You can DM me @artemisodinson on tumblr to talk about what went down.

_ “Charlotte, where is my daughter?” _

 

Charlotte froze at the older woman’s words. Her heart skipped a beat as she swallowed hard, trying to ready herself to answer. 

 

“Sophia? She ah, your brother he...uh.” Isabella was standing next to her now at the counter where she had been fixing her breakfast. 

 

“My brother  _ what  _ Charlotte?” Charlotte continued to stare at the eggs in front of her, unable to meet her beloved’s eyes. 

 

She blew out a hard breath. “I tried to contact ‘er Isabella. ‘Bout a month after you were taken. She was back at ‘er school. But…” Isabella placed her hands on Charlotte’s. “And?” 

 

Charlotte choked back the bile that had risen in her throat. “She wrote back to me. I had contacted ‘er too late Isabella. Your brother had 'er convinced that you were mad or insane somehow and that I had been the one to drive you to that madness. She asked me not to try and contact ‘er again.”

 

Charlotte finally brought herself to look at Isabella’s face, expecting to see some sort of horror or sadness in her eyes. However, her beloved’s face remained...impassive and unreadable. “Isabella?” 

 

The older woman looked up and locked eyes with her. “Hmm yes?” 

 

“You ‘eard what I said didn’t you? Your daugh’er thinks you some sort of madwoman. Your brother turned ‘er against you.” 

 

Isabella just sighed loudly and moved back around to sit down as she had before. “Yes I head you perfectly well the first time Charlotte. From what you’ve said, it seems there is not much to be done about it.” 

 

_ What? It seemed as though Isabella didn’t even care about what had happened to her daughter. _

 

“If she is still at her school as you have said then she is as safe as she can be.” Charlotte just gaped at the older woman.  _ Is she in denial somehow?  _ The smell of burnt eggs filled the air. 

 

“Oh for god fucking sake!” Charlotte stared down at the charred pan in anger. It was going to take her hours just to scrub the burnt egg from it. 

“It’s fine Charlotte I can just eat the spiced bread your sister spoke of.”  Charlotte moved to the bread dejectedly, placing a slice of it as well as a small jar of jam in front of Isabella. 

 

She watched as the woman’s hands trembled to place the jam on the bread. “Here, let m-” “I am capable of putting jam on bread Charlotte! I am not a child!” Charlotte snatched her proffered hand back. She had never heard Isabella speak with such sudden anger. 

 

The older woman finished her painstaking process of putting the jam on the bread and let the knife clatter to the table. Charlotte watched as she brought a weary hand to her face and . “I’m sorry for my words Charlotte. I am merely frustrated that I am so weak.” Her beloved looked down at the pitiful slice of bread in front of her. 

 

There was a knock at the door, presumably more culls. Charlotte moved to receive them. 

 

“Wait, Charlotte. Please sit down with me? I’d rather not be alone.” She turned back around to where the older woman sat and smiled at her gently. “Of course love. Anythin’ you want.”

 

They both sat together in silence as Isabella ate her breakfast with slow and shaky hands. 

 

The next few weeks passed by very much the same as the last six weeks had, the only difference being that Isabella was now able to speak and respond to queries as well as feed and bathe herself. 

 

Isabella found the days blending together mindlessly. She still slept through most of them, her body too weak to handle much else. Charlotte was at her side as much as possible. 

 

Isabella was also painfully aware of her own lack of emotion. She would think of Sophia and feel nothing. Lucy would come up and crack small jokes that should have at least made her smile softly and she could barely bring up the energy to fake one. 

 

Worst of all however, was that Charlotte would gaze at her adoringly and beam at her with radiant love and affection  _ constantly  _ and  _ still  _ Isabella found herself unable to even muster back a genuine look of any sort of enthusiasm. 

 

The nightmares were certainly in full force though. Isabella told Charlotte that if she awoke again thrashing around to simply let her thrash herself off the bed. It would wake her up and it would not burden Charlotte with being required to act on it. 

 

Charlotte did not listen. Isabella usually found herself waking up from her horrific nightmares with Charlotte’s soft hand combing her sweaty hair out of her eyes. Or a soft hand holding desperately tight onto her own. 

 

One morning, Sukey, one of the girls of the house, took it upon herself to teach Isabella to slice bread. “It really ain’t that complex Lady Fitz, just grasp the knife firmly and push down into the bread confidently.” 

 

Some of Isabella’s strength in her hands had returned so she took the knife from the younger woman’s hands and moved to slice the bread. Her body betrayed her though and instead of slicing the bread, her hand jerked slightly and sliced her opposite hand on the palm instead.

 

She gasped loudly at the sensation. The sudden flood of emotion of pain and shock was more than she had felt in  _ months.  _ “Fuck Lady Fitz, you are useless huh?” Sukey grasped her cut hand, but Isabella could not draw her eyes away from the blood pooling on her hand and running down her wrist. 

 

“C’mon, let’s go get this cleaned up and bandaged.” 

 

Isabella lay in bed that night unable to sleep, unable to  _ think  _ past the way it had felt when she sliced her hand. Charlotte lay beside her, sleeping peacefully. 

 

She stared at the bandage on her hand. There was the tiniest amount of blood that had bled through. The sight of it brought up an overwhelming urge to cut herself again. Anywhere. Everywhere. Anything to bring about what she had felt earlier. 

 

She slowly crept away from the bed making sure not to wake Charlotte. 

 

Isabella made her way down the stairs and into the kitchen. There were a myriad of knives they used for cooking. Every one of them sharp and clean.  _ They wouldn’t notice if I stole just one would they? _

 

She grabbed a small vegetable slicing knife and crept back upstairs again slowly.  _ I can’t do this in Charlotte’s bedroom, she may see me.  _

 

She looked to the end of the hall to the bathing room.  _ It’s the dead of night. No one will be coming in this late.  _

 

Isabella opened the creaking door slowly. She saw a chair in the back of the room and moved to sit on it, cutting knife still in hand. Her heart thudded in her chest.  _ Am I really going to do this?  _ She glanced at the bandage on her left hand, remembering the rush of emotion she had felt the last time she had cut herself. 

 

But that had been an accident. If she went forward with this now and if she were to continue to do it, she would be  _ intentionally  _ harming herself just to abate her ceaseless numbness. 

 

She pulled up her nightgown to expose her pale thighs, thinking that it would be the least likely place for anyone to notice the cuts. She brought the knife down slowly and carefully, digging into the very top of her thigh. 

 

The knife did not slice her skin at first, so she pressed harder and made one clean swipe across the entire top of her left thigh. It was so incredibly painful, she dropped the knife almost immediately in her agony. 

 

She stared down at the blood that was brought up to the surface.  _ Is this truly who I have become? Is this what I must suffer to begin feeling things again? _

 

Isabella glanced down at knife on the floor.  _ Perhaps my brother was right. Perhaps I did deserve to be locked in that place. Only a madwoman could find logic in intentionally harming oneself. _

 

Her thoughts were interrupted by the door swinging open. She was still too stunned by her actions to make a pretense of covering herself. 

 

It was young Lucy Wells who had opened the door. “Oh! Lady Fitz! My apologies. I hadn’t realized anyone else would be bathing at this hou-” She saw the younger woman’s gaze drop to her thigh. 

 

“You’re hurt!” Isabella yanked down her nightgown to pretend like there was nothing there. “No it’s fine Ms. Wells you need not worry.” She hadn’t even gotten through her sentence by the time Lucy had strode over to pull her nightgown back up and reveal Isabella’s guilt. 

 

“Who...when?” Isabella involuntarily dropped her gaze to the knife on the floor. Lucy’s eyes followed hers. “Lady Fitz I-I don’t understand. Did you-did you do this to yourself?” 

 

Isabella felt overwhelmed with shame and guilt. Lucy seemed to shake her head in incredulity. “Wh-Why...I don’t..” Isabella interrupted her with a gentle hand on her cheek. 

 

“Ms. Wells when I was  _ there _ , I had to force myself to suppress my emotions. I couldn’t bear to think of Sophia or Charlotte or my brother or I would have gone more mad than I already am.” 

 

She swallowed heavily, suddenly biting back tears.

 

“When I came to my senses here I...I could not bring my emotions back to me. The first morning after, when I asked Charlotte about my daughter and she explained her situation…” She trailed off, closing both eyes and clenching her fists in frustration. 

 

“I  _ knew  _ that I should have been devastated. I should have been horrified. I should have felt  _ something.  _ But I did not.”

 

“Maybe you were just in denial of some sort.” Isabella stood from her chair abruptly, wincing at the feeling of standing with the cut on her thigh. 

 

“It is not just my feelings for my daughter that I cannot seem to muster. Surely you have noticed my lack of any sort of emotion these last weeks as well?” Lucy ‘hmmed’ softly in agreement. 

 

“It is the worst when I am around Charlotte. I know I was deeply in love with her before I was taken. I remember feeling such incredible new and wonderful things near her. But now, when I see her I sometimes have to remind myself of that love.” She paced the room now. Lucy stood and watched her. 

 

“I can see such adoration and reverence in her eyes and I cannot even make a pretense of returning those feelings. I am unsure that I will truly ever  _ feel  _ anything again. It is as if my suppression of emotion _there_ was too powerful and I am unable to force myself to feel things again.” 

 

Lucy piped in gently. “Well, that is quite a horrid conundrum Lady Fitz. And I am unsure that there is some magic way to make you feel things again. But you still have not answered why you purposely cut yourself just now.”

 

Isabella turned to face the younger woman, her soft blue eyes trained on her were full of compassion and sympathy. And were so much like Charlotte’s

 

“This morning when I cut my hand, the pain and shock of it was more than I had felt in the last eight weeks combined. I came here to attempt to replicate it, but I will not be attempting it again. That much pain is not worth the small burst of emotion it gives me.” 

 

Lucy came forward and wrapped her hands around Isabella’s waist. The girl was easily a full head and a half shorter than Isabella. She turned her head up, resting her chin on Isabella’s chest. 

 

The younger girl’s eyes were brimming with tears now. “Please do not do this again. And do not concern yourself over your lack of feelings. Charlotte and I will just have to feel enough for the three of us. You know how passionate she is about everything and I am very much the same.”

Isabella was surprised that she began to genuinely cry at the emotion in the girl’s words.  _ Perhaps I can slowly begin to feel again.  _


	7. Beautiful Nightmare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Isabella decides she wants to write a letter to her daughter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're getting close to the end folks! Still a minimal amount of angst in this chapter but it's definitely not as heavy as the last few. Enjoy! By the way, I realized I fucked up on the canonical timeline here. I began this story right after 2x06 but I have realized that I have referenced some of 2x07 and 2x08. So for this story, Isabella's storyline of getting to meet Sophia happened but Lucy left Fallon fully of her own accord and Fallon never returned to kill Amelia so he was never captured by the women. Quigley took Sophia to Harcourt and Harcourt sent Isabella to Bedlam. Margaret still was not actually hung but William's focus on trying to cheer Isabella up made it so he never confronted Hunt about Margaret's body and none of them know she is alive. It all seems kind of flaky I know but that's what happened in this story in order for it to flow.

A day went by. A week. A month. Charlotte noted with no small amount of victory that Isabella was finally beginning to emote again. 

 

She spoke with more confidence. She would chuckle under her breath at Charlotte’s and Lucy’s cheesy jokes. She would volunteer to hold Kitty Lambert at times and coo at her gently as a mother would. 

 

And when Charlotte told her beloved “I love you.” there was a dim light of reciprocation in Isabella’s eyes, before the older woman would respond with a soft “You too.”  But never with a direct “I love you” back.

 

It had taken Charlotte awhile, but she finally realized after the weeks of seeing emotion oh so slowly seep back into the older woman’s life that Isabella had had to put up wall after wall of emotional barriers to keep even a minute of her sanity when she had been in Bedlam. 

 

Charlotte decided it was her duty to break each and every one of those barriers. 

 

The two of them would lie in bed together at night and Charlotte would push every limit she could to encourage Isabella to feel safe and loved. She would kiss the older woman’s forehead and cheeks with a soft “goodnight” every night. She would try as much as she could to hold the older woman as she slept and while some nights Isabella did refuse, she did at times allow Charlotte to wrap her arms around her small frame until they both fell asleep. 

 

Though these nights were supposed to be about Isabella, Charlotte found herself resisting the urge to kiss the older woman. She found herself dreaming about the older woman’s hands upon her body and her own hands on Isabella’s. There were nights where she would wake up on the cusp of orgasm and choke as her awakened body was flooded with the smell and feel of the very object of her desire next to her. 

 

_ She’s not even ready to yet to say “I love you” back. She doesn’t need you forcing anything sexual on her.  _

 

In the mornings and afternoons, she was struck by Isabella’s interactions with Lucy. Isabella was almost more receptive to Charlotte’s sister emotionally than she was to Charlotte. 

 

Of course Charlotte couldn’t help but feel slightly jealous, but the sight of a genuine closed-mouth smile on Isabella’s face prompted by anybody was worth any small twinges of jealousy that may crop up.

 

One morning, Lucy, Charlotte, and Isabella all sat at the table for breakfast. Isabella’s hands were no longer shaking as she fed herself. Charlotte beamed at her before moving on to her own breakfast. She couldn’t help but continue to study the woman. 

 

She still did not look fully like the woman she was before she was sent to that dreadful institution, but there was more colour in her cheeks and she had put on a small amount of much needed weight. Perhaps if she lived still in the opulent Blayne house and was always well fed on rich meats, cheeses, and breads as she had once been, she may have been able to put on more weight than she could at the brothel that could only afford simple breads and porridge with perhaps the occasional chicken. 

 

It also didn’t help that the first two months or so that Isabella had been here, Charlotte could really only get her to eat one, maybe two bowls of soup per day in her catatonic state. 

 

Still, Charlotte was quite content with the progress Isabella had made. 

 

She had just spooned a hearty spoonful of porridge into her mouth when the older woman suddenly spoke.

 

“Charlotte.” Charlotte ‘hmmed’ softly, spoon of porridge still in her mouth. “Charlotte, I’d like to get a letter to my daughter.” 

 

Charlotte gagged somewhat on the spoon in her mouth, swallowing the porridge heavily. She coughed slightly and Lucy patted her on the back to abate her choking. She looked up to meet Isabella’s eyes. The older woman looked very serious. 

 

“Isabella I, uh, I don’t even know if that’s possible. You remember I told you your wretched brother got into ‘er head. She thinks you a madwoman and me some sor’ of evil witch who made you so.” 

 

Isabella nodded and brought her hand up to lean on it heavily, sighing resignedly in the process. The older woman stirred her porridge distractedly with the other. “I fully remember what you told me Charlotte, but I think of Sophia nearly every day now. What if Harcourt never even told her I left Bedlam? I simply wish for her to know where I am and that I am thinking of her.”

 

Charlotte’s sister chimed in. “Lady Fitz, I can tell you that if somehow my mother were still alive, even if I thought ‘er mad or horrible in some way...I would still want to know that she were alive. I completely agree that we should at least try.” Her last sentence was directed at Charlotte. 

 

Charlotte sighed softly. Neither of them had read Sophia’s letter to Charlotte. It was filled with such obvious manipulated vitriol and disgust, she had burned it as soon as she had finished reading it. 

 

“If it’s what you want Isabella, I’m not going to stop you. Just...just don’t be disappointed if you don’t get a response.” Isabella smiled at her gently with those words. Charlotte’s heart skipped slightly at the sight of the genuine smile and the soft love in Isabella’s eyes. 

  
  


Isabella took her time writing her letter to her daughter, starting over four times before finally deciding on the proper wording. She stared at the letter on the table before her. She had not written anything in nearly nine months, and the shakiness of her hand showed. Hopefully Sophia would not care. 

 

Isabella looked out the window to the London night and then to the clock. It was nearing eleven now. Charlotte would likely be letting in the last of the overnight culls and then coming into their shared room. 

 

Her heart stuttered slightly at the thought of laying in bed with Charlotte. They had been sharing a bed for several months now, but only over the last few weeks had her body began to remind her that this was the very bed that she and Charlotte had had sex in so many months ago. 

 

She was not a fool either. She had caught Charlotte’s gaze on her several times the last few weeks as well. The pure reverence and admiration had never wavered, but mixed in with the love was a thinly veiled hunger. 

 

There were moments where Charlotte’s eyes would flit to her lips or her body and Isabella could almost  _ feel  _ Charlotte’s desire to kiss her or touch her. 

 

Isabella wanted to let Charlotte touch her like that. She truly did. But her body was still scarred and thin from being  _ there. _ She didn’t want Charlotte to see her like that, even if she had seen her in the times when Isabella had still needed help bathing herself. 

 

But it was different now. Isabella’s awareness of Charlotte’s presence being the main difference. 

 

Her thoughts were interrupted by the door opening. The object of her musings walked through the door drunkenly. Charlotte often drank on nights when they entertained culls, so the sight of the younger woman’s slight drunkenness was nothing entirely unexpected. 

 

“Evenin, love” Charlotte gave her a toothy grin. The younger woman swaggered over to the desk and draped herself across Isabella’s back. She rested her chin on Isabella’s shoulder to look at what Isabella had been doing. 

 

“That your le’er to your daugh’er?” Charlotte’s lower class accent was always even more heavily pronounced whenever drunk. 

 

“It is. Would you care to read it before I seal it and send it to Chelsea?” Isabella tilted her head slightly to look at Charlotte. The younger woman’s eyes were closed. Isabella thought perhaps she had fallen asleep but then she shook her head slightly in response. 

 

“Not my business what you got to say to Sophia, love. Seal it up and c’mon to bed.” Charlotte slurred as she pulled away and laid a soft kiss on Isabella’s forehead. Isabella forced herself not to shudder at the younger woman’s touch. 

 

Isabella watched as Charlotte fumbled with her clothes and wig and the unceremoniously flop herself down onto the bed in her chemise. She chuckled softly at the younger woman’s drunken antics. 

 

She cast one last glance to the letter before her and then moved to seal it with the stationery Charlotte had on her desk. 

 

Isabella stood and moved to the bed. Charlotte was already fast asleep and taking her half up the middle of the bed. Isabella sighed softly before moving the sleeping woman slightly so that she could lay on the bed herself. 

 

Sleep overcame her quickly. 

 

She awoke to the sounds of soft whimpers. She looked over at her bed mate. 

 

Charlotte was shaking and whimpering slightly in her sleep.  _ Is she having a nightmare? Should I wake he-  _ Isabella’s thoughts were interrupted as Charlotte let out a soft moan and a plaintively sighed out “Isabella…”

 

Isabella’s face reddened as she realized just what sort of dream Charlotte was having. She was suddenly overwhelmed with the urge to touch the younger woman. She reached out and pulled the younger woman to her, positioning her so that her back was to Isabella. Their bodies were already molded together when Charlotte awoke with a loud gasp. 

 

“I-Isabella what are you…” The arousal in Charlotte’s voice was enough to choke on. Isabella shushed her gently. She moved one hand to pull Charlotte in closer and used the other to slide up the younger woman’s chemise. 

 

“Let me take care of you darling.” Charlotte was whimpering and gasping, obviously trying to say something, but unable to get any words out. 

 

Charlotte’s inner thighs were fully slick with arousal. Isabella maneuvered her hand up higher until she finally hit the juncture between the younger woman’s legs. Charlotte had given up trying to speak and had turned her head into Isabella’s neck, continuously making desperate sounds of pleasure. 

 

It did not take much work on Isabella’s part before Charlotte was shuddering hard in climax. Isabella relished the feeling of knowing she was able to bring Charlotte to this state.  

 

Once Charlotte had fully rode out her climax, the younger woman turned suddenly in Isabella’s arms. Before Isabella could say anything, Charlotte had claimed her lips firmly. The younger woman’s hands grasped at Isabella’s back, seeking purchase to pull Isabella in closer. 

 

Isabella melted into Charlotte’s touch. They kissed passionately for several minutes until neither of them could draw breath. Charlotte moved to kiss Isabella’s neck, but although part of her was relishing in the pleasure Charlotte was giving to her. Another part was fighting to scamper away from the intimacy of the moment. 

 

She knew she had been the one to initiate this whole thing, but she had just wanted to give Charlotte some relief. She hadn’t considered being touched herself. 

 

When she felt a soft hand dragging up her thigh, closing in on her center, she could no longer fight off the part of her that wanted to escape the moment. She shoved Charlotte away from her suddenly and all but fell off the bed in trying to get away. 

 

She turned away from the younger woman, unable to bring herself to look Charlotte in the eye. “I-Isabella...what..what’s wrong?” Charlotte was still breathless with arousal. 

 

Isabella scrunched her eyes closed and flinched away from the hand upon her back. “Ple-please don’t touch me Charlotte. I can’t…” Her voice trailed off. 

 

“Isabella I-I don’t understand…you..you were..” Isabella felt her heart break at the sadness in Charlotte’s voice. She felt flooded with guilt. 

 

“Charlotte I know I..that I was the one who touched you first but I…” She could hear Charlotte sigh softly and felt as the younger woman flopped back down heavily on the bed. “You’re just not ready for all of it at once love.” 

 

Isabella finally forced herself to turn around and look at Charlotte. The younger woman’s chest was still heaving with arousal. She had an arm over her eyes, as though she was trying to slow and control her breath. 

 

“It’s alright Isabella. I’ll just…” The younger woman stood up and headed to the door. “I’m going to stay with Lucy tonight, if that‘s okay.” Isabella swallowed heavily. “Wh-why can’t you stay here?”  _ With me?  _

 

“Isabella, if I stay ‘ere any longer, I’m not goin’ to be able to stop myself from touching you. It’s just for tonight.” Charlotte walked out the door before Isabella could even protest. 

 

Isabella rubbed at her eyes, frustrated at what had just happened.  _ Every time I think I am getting better, it’s one step forward and two steps backward.  _

 

She didn’t sleep for the rest of the night, unable to sleep without Charlotte’s comforting presence near her. 


	8. Xenologue: Sophia's Journals

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A display of Sophia's journals of what happened to her while Isabella was in Bedlam and since Isabella was taken from there

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter is a bit different. There is no Charlotte or Isabella but the character of Sophia intrigues me a lot and I plan on making her an important part of this story's epic climax. I felt like I should show the progression of her being manipulated by Harcourt to her acceptance of her mother and Charlotte.

_ From the Journals of Sophia Fitzwilliam:  _

 

**_Journal Entry: (approximately two weeks after Sophia met Isabella)_ **

_  What a tumultuous fortnight it has been! For nearly my entire life I had been contacted by my mother only once through a vague letter. She did not reveal her identity or her reasons for sending me to the school alone. All she stated was that she loved me and that we could never meet to ensure my safety. _

 

_ Imagine my shock when a black man came to fetch me from my school to tell me I was to meet her! I still balk now at her audacity of all but kidnapping me unannounced and taking me to meet her in a bawdy house full of sinful and distasteful women. She seemed nice enough the day we met I suppose, but her ramblings about what an evil man my uncle was seem now to be exceedingly unprecedented.  _

 

_ An older woman named Lydia Quigley took me from that wretched place, though my clearly mad mother tried to fight it. Both Mrs. Quigley and my uncle told me of how unhinged my mother had become in the recent months since meeting the leader of that bawdy house Charlotte Wells. _

 

_ I certainly agree with Mrs. Quigley and my uncle. What sort of mother would lie for years about her identity and then take me to a house of such horrid sin? My uncle’s decision to place her in Bedlam is for the best. From what I hear, she belongs in such a place.  _

 

**_Journal Entry: (approximately a month after Isabella was taken)_ **

 

_  Charlotte Wells. Damn you to hell Charlotte Wells. This sinful and horrid woman had the absolute arrogant presumptuousness to send me a letter trying to detail her relationship to my mother and plead on my mother’s behalf.  _

 

_ She wrote at length to slander my kind uncle’s name, calling him both a rapist and a murderer! Out of all this chaos he has been the only one who has been the least bit kind and sympathetic to me. He has gifted me with the most beautiful jewelry and dresses and introduced me to the kindest lords and ladies of the area. He was obviously correct in calling this Wells woman a manipulative and lying witch. _

 

_ It is only because of his acceptance of me that I may find a suitable husband though I am but a bastard.  _

 

_ I burned the cursed letter and sent a letter to Ms. Wells in return, making my feelings regarding her and her manipulation of my poor mother quite clear. I wish my mother had never met this wretch. Perhaps she and I could have a semblance of a relationship if this Wells woman hadn’t driven her to madness. _

 

**_Journal Entry: (approximately three months after Isabella was taken)_ **

 

_  I did something yesterday I likely should not have. I regret ever having done so.  _

 

_ I visited the Bedlam institution. I saw my mother there. They do not allow anyone to go down and physically visit those who are there, but I saw her on the floor below the rafters where I stood.  _

 

_ She looked awful. Unrecognizable even. They had her chained by both her hands and feet to the wall. And she looked so dreadfully skinny. I nearly called out to her, but the lump in my throat prevented me from doing so. I ran out of there as quickly as I could.  _

 

_ I approached my uncle about it at dinner and he brushed it off as though it was some sort of norm. I grew angry from his reaction and yelled at him for his obvious lack of care for my mother. I so wish I could take those words back.  _

 

_ He reacted rather...violently. He slammed a tea cup down so hard that it broke and yelled back at me. Telling me I was too young and too innocent to understand the dealings of adults and that I did not fully understand the reasonings behind sending my mother to that place. He forbid me from seeing her again and told me he would tell the guards of the institution to not let me in.  _

 

_ Thinking of my uncle, I have noticed he has been acting strangely towards me lately. If I did not know any better, if we were not related, I would think he was making advances towards me.  _

 

**_Journal Entry: (approximately four months after Isabella was taken)_ **

 

_  I met the oddest man today. He was at Mrs. Quigley’s house as she and I were taking tea together. He was a gangly man, with the look of the East about him. But still an attractive boy nonetheless. His name was Rasselas.  _

 

_ While we were taking tea, I saw many lords wandering about the house, adorned by a young woman. I am beginning to suspect that Mrs. Quigley’s house is a bawdy house as well, but I cannot be sure. She never allows me anywhere except the entrance and the tea room. _

 

_ Mrs. Quigley left for a few moments as we were taking tea together and he approached me. He spoke in hushed whispers, telling me how he knew my mother and Ms. Wells both. I was about to interrupt him and tell him not to speak of the wretch Ms. Wells when he started gently speaking of how kind my mother was. How she always treated him with such dignity and respect even though he was a molly boy.  _

 

_ He claimed to be quite saddened by my mother being in Bedlam. In my shock, I accidentally let him speak of Ms. Wells. He told me that Charlotte Wells was one of the bravest and kindest women he had known and that she had loved my mother. I choked at his implication of love.  _

 

_ He must have noticed my shock because he went on in his soft voice about how I had likely been taught that two men being lovers or two women being lovers was a sin. He grasped my hand gently in that moment and looked dead into my eyes. “Love is not a sin.” He spoke with such vindication I was taken aback.  _

 

_ He leaned into my ear as Mrs. Quigley walked back in. “Do not trust Lydia Quigley or your uncle. Anything your mother or Charlotte told you about them is true.”  _

 

_ Mrs. Quigley and my uncle have been hiding things from me. That much is certain. But I am unsure of who to trust. The people who have taken me in and been nothing but kind to me? Or the woman who chooses to blatantly live in sin yet claims to have loved my mother.  _

 

_ There is one thing I am most definitely sure of. Charlotte Wells was not the one who sent my mother to that horrid place.  _

 

**_Journal Entry: (around the time Isabella was taken out of Bedlam and given to Charlotte)_ **

 

_ My mind is reeling. I don’t know what to believe and who to trust, or if I am even safe any longer.  _

 

_ Charlotte Wells was right. Rasselas was right. I overheard Lydia Quigley and my uncle this morning making deals to “procure a virgin” for my uncle to have his way with.  _

 

_ He then bragged to say something along the lines of allowing Lord Liddington to be the one to take “this one’s” life.  _

 

_ It was exactly as Charlotte had said. My uncle was a sadistic murdering rapist. I am beginning to believe that perhaps what I had once thought was my imagination of him making advances towards me are actual advances.  _

 

_ I must get my mother out of that place and to Ms. Wells. I can stand the thought of my innocent mother in there no longer. If he has lied and manipulated me this long with falsehoods about Ms. Wells, what deceitful tales has he been feeding me about my mother? _

 

**_Journal Entry: (about two months after Isabella was taken out of Bedlam)_ **

_  I can barely muster the strength to write this. I finally got the strength to ask my uncle today if I could get permission to see my mother again since I am on vacation from school. _

 

_ He told me she was dead. She killed herself in that place. Over two months ago. _

 

_ I want to send a letter to Charlotte Wells about it, but as I am on vacation from school and now trapped in my uncle’s home, I doubt I will be able to get the letter out.  _

 

_ Once I go back to school, I will send the letter from the postal office there. But that will not be for another month when the end of summer comes.  _

 

_ My uncle’s behavior grows more erratic and dangerous with each passing day. I dare not try to defy him lest I risk my own safety. I must stay alive and stay strong.  _

 

_ I imagine it is what my mother would have wanted.  _

 

**_Journal Entry: (around nine months after Isabella was initially sent to Bedlam)_ **

 

_ I write this with trembling and excited hands. My mother is alive! Thank God above she is alive and she is no longer in that place.  _

 

_ I received a letter from her today while at school. She told me my uncle took her out of Bedlam a few months ago and that rather than keeping her, he gave her to Charlotte Wells.  _

 

_ She told me she was in a horribly sorry state following her release. This is the first she has been able to have the mental and physical strength to write to me. She begged my forgiveness and to not listen to any lies my uncle tried to force upon me. Evidently Ms. Wells had told her of the letter I wrote to the bawd so many months ago.  _

 

_ Tomorrow is the weekend. I have enough money that my uncle has given me to procure a carriage. I am going to see my mother. _


	9. Reunited

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charlotte deals with the aftermath of the night that Isabella touched her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We are rapidly approaching the end folks! There will probably only be one or two more chapters.

Things had been awkward between Charlotte and Isabella since the night that Isabella had brought Charlotte to her release. 

 

Charlotte sighed softly as she thought about that night. She had been so happy, intoxicated by Isabella’s loving touch and scent, that she lost control and took her actions too far. 

Isabella had looked like a wounded dog when Charlotte had said she was going to go sleep with Lucy and it had been evident that next morning that Isabella had hardly slept during the night. Charlotte felt incredibly guilty about it. 

 

Neither one of them spoke about what had happened to each other and while Charlotte had not said anything to her sister, by the looks her sister gave her the days following, it was likely that Isabella had. 

 

Charlotte was still trying to decipher what exactly Lucy and Isabella’s relationship was. Charlotte was not jealous in that she knew they were not  _ together,  _ but for some reason Isabella seemed to trust Lucy with things she could not tell Charlotte. 

 

Charlotte decided it best that she keep her distance, physically and emotionally from Isabella. The woman was still obviously struggling with what had happened to her, and Charlotte was probably making it worse by pushing too hard. 

 

It had been three weeks since that night.  _ Isabella’s letter to her daughter will probably get to her soon.  _ Charlotte thought belatedly, as she sat down next to the woman for breakfast. 

 

Her beloved gave her a soft smile. It took everything Charlotte had to not kiss the smile that graced the older woman’s lips. As she turned to adjust herself in her seat, she missed the saddened look that came across Isabella’s face. 

 

“Good morning Charlotte. I hope I did not wake you when I left the bed this morning.” 

 

Charlotte waved the older woman off with a turn of her hand. “ ‘course not love. I’ve been sleepin’ pretty hard these last few weeks anyway.” It was not a lie. She had been sleeping a lot more deeply since that night between the two of them. She just chose to omit that it was because she had purchased a sleeping draught from the apothecary down the road and was using it at night to guarantee that she __ not  _wake_ Isabella again. 

 

“Of course.” Isabella then resumed her eating. Charlotte could tell Isabella was nearly at her full strength again, barely shaking or trembling like she had for the last few months as she scooped porridge into her mouth. 

 

Charlotte began to eat some of the bread that lay in the center of the table. It was warm. Lucy or Fanny had likely gone to the bakery early that morning to get fresh bread. Charlotte groaned internally at the thought. The brothel had been struggling with money for rent lately, it would do them no good to waste money on frivolous things like fresh bread. 

 

“Charlotte?” Charlotte looked up at the older woman, noting the soft tremble of her voice. “Yes love?” 

 

Charlotte was stunned to see Isabella looking at her with almost watery eyes. “Charlotte, have I angered you somehow?” Charlotte nearly choked on her next breath. 

 

“What? Isabella w-why in Hades would you think that?” Charlotte watched as her beloved swallowed heavily and blew out a hard breath. It was evident the older woman was struggling not to cry. 

 

“I know it upset you that night that I would not let you touch me back, but had I known that it would mean you would cut off all contact with me completely, I would have just let it happen.” Charlotte just sat there, mouth agape at Isabella’s words. 

 

“Isabella. What are you talking about?” The older woman reached forward and grasped Charlotte’s hand. 

 

“You, Charlotte, or more specifically, your behavior towards me. You used to pull me out of bed every morning with a kiss on the forehead or a hug or greet me at breakfast with a warm smile and a hand on my cheek. It seems recently that I can scarcely even get you to look at me.” 

 

“I-eh Isabella y-you told me that night tha-” “That I was not ready for sex Charlotte, not that I wanted you to treat me like I will break if you look at me for too long.” 

 

Charlotte sighed heavily and placed a hand on her forehead.  _ Jesus Fuck I am so stupid.  _ “Isabella.” She reached forward and placed a hand on Isabella’s cheek, which the older woman promptly turned her face into to kiss. Charlotte fought the shudder that went through her system. 

 

“God, here I was feelin’ so fuckin’ guilty like I had taken advantage of you and instead you just suffered through me bein’ a prick towards you.” The older woman chuckled wetly at Charlotte’s words. 

 

“Isabella, I can hardly put into words how much I love you. Hell, until you, I never even dreamed I was capable of such love.” She tilted the older woman’s face towards her own. “I would do  _ anything  _ to make you happy, all you have to do is tell me.” 

 

She smiled brightly at Isabella’s own soft grin. “Pretty stupid of me to be afraid to touch you ey love?” 

 

The older woman leaned her face forward and gave Charlotte a chaste kiss on the lips. Charlotte just sighed contently. Both pleased and relieved at the touch. 

 

They broke the kiss and Isabella placed her forehead on top of Charlotte’s. “Yes darling, it was a bit silly of you. And Charlotte?” Isabella leaned back so she could look Charlotte in the eye as she said her next words. 

 

“I love you too.” Charlotte felt like the smile that crossed her face could have split it wide open. It was the first time Isabella had actually said the words back. She couldn’t help but lean forward and connect their lips again, this time in a more solid and passionate kiss. 

 

“Lady Fitz there’s-” Charlotte pulled away from her beloved’s lips and groaned. “What is it Luce?” 

 

Charlotte’s sister walked into the kitchen further. “Lady Fitz, there’s a young girl here to see you. Says she’s your daugh-” The words had not even fully left Lucy’s lips before Isabella leapt up from the table to run to the door.

 

 

 

“Sophia..” Isabella could hardly believe her eyes. After so many months of wondering if she would even ever have a relationship with her daughter, here the girl was, standing before her. 

 

“Mother!” The blonde girl ran forward and plowed into Isabella with a firm hug. Isabella gasped in shock at her daughter’s actions, but reeled from it enough to sink into the embrace. Her eyes filled with tears and she silently thanked God for allowing Sophia back into her life. 

 

She could feel wetness against her chest. She gently pulled back from the embrace to look at her daughter’s face, stunned to see tears rolling down them. 

 

“Mother he-he, my uncle told me you were dead! That you had killed yourself in that horrid institution!” She pulled Sophia’s head back into her chest and shushed her gently. 

 

“I’m alright my sweetness. I’ve been here with Charlotte for several months now.” Her daughter pulled away and sniffled slightly, wiping her eyes with the back of her sleeve. 

 

“Yes I know. I received your letter just yesterday. I came as soon as I could.” 

 

“Glad to see you alright Sophia.” It was Charlotte, standing in the doorway of the dining room. “Ms. Wells!” 

 

Isabella watched as her daughter propelled herself towards her  _ lover?  _ and hugged her as well. Charlotte just awkwardly patted the younger girl’s back and gave Isabella a confused look. 

 

Sophia pulled back from the embrace. “Ms. Wells I am so terribly sorry for what I said to you in that letter. Y-you were right! About everything…” Her daughter looked down at the floor in shame. 

 

“S’alright Sophia. Harcourt and Quigley can be charming when they want t’be.” Isabella walked forward to stand next to her daughter and lover. 

 

“Has my brother...hurt you in any way Sophia?” Her daughter sighed softly. “No, but he has made some sort of...advances towards me. I suppose since he prefers virgins, and I was not  _ raised _ his niece that he has some sort of perverse feelings towards me.” 

 

Isabella could barely breathe. Harcourt had damned her with his lust when she was nearly Sophia’s age, she wouldn’t put it past him to touch Sophia as he had her. 

 

“I’m going to fucking kill that rat bastard.” Isabella flinched at Charlotte’s harsh language, but she could hardly say she did not agree.  

 

“Sophia. How do you know that he ‘prefers virgins’?” Isabella watched in horror as her daughter’s face turned grey at her question. 

 

“I-I overheard him asking Mrs. Quigley to get one for him. A-and I also overheard him one night speaking to his...men about it.” Charlotte grasped Isabella’s daughter’s hand gently. 

 

“What other men Sophia?” Sophia sighed softly. “I could not see their faces, but I recognized two of the men’s voices. Lord Fallon and Lord Liddington. But I-” Isabella watched as her daughter reached into a pocket at the front of her cloak and pulled out a stack of papers.

 

“I have proof of their crimes.” 

 


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sophia tells Charlotte and Isabella of her plans.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is probably the second to last chapter minus the epilogue. Let me know what you think in the comments down below and follow me on tumblr @artemisodinson

“Proof?! What sor’ of proof?” Charlotte exclaimed as Sophia held out a stack of papers for her to take. 

“Letters mostly. Both Mrs. Quigley and my uncle and his men have become sloppy recently in their correspondences. And in trusting me.” Charlotte scanned through the contents of the letters. She recognized Lydia Quigley’s hand as well as Blayne’s in the more inflammatory letters, but neither signed off in their own name. Lydia referred to himself as the “High Priestess” and Blayne referred to himself as the “Archon”.

“These letters are damnin’ Sophia, but you don’t seem to have proof that Quigley or Blayne actually  _ wrote  _ them.” Charlotte continued to grow more thoroughly repulsed by the content of the letters as she read them. The way both Lydia and Blayne so casually spoke of raping and killing young girls as though it was some benign sport of some kind made Charlotte sick to her stomach.

She forced herself to stop looking at them, handing the papers over to Isabella for her to inspect.

“I also took a letter from Lydia to her son where she  _ does  _ write her sign her full name at the bottom. Anyone can tell it’s written in the same hand.” Charlotte put a hand to her forehead and rubbed at it in frustration. The Lord Chief Justice was still eating out of the palm of Lydia Quigley’s hand and unless they presented  _ undeniable  _ and perfect evidence of the crimes of the Spartans, the law would still not punish them.

“Sophia, my darling, how did you even obtain these letters?” Isabella’s voice shook as she asked her daughter the question. Charlotte looked up at the older woman and saw that she looked worried, perhaps almost scared of the answer.

“My uncle left his office open to me after I told him I needed it to practice writing Latin. And I have never given reason to not trust me so he left me in it alone.” Charlotte did not enjoy the expression on Sophia’s face as she spoke about her uncle. It was too similar to Isabella’s face the night she told Charlotte that Harcourt had raped her at Sophia’s age.

“As for Lydia’s letters,” Sophia started to speak again. “A young man named Rasselas helped me distract her one morning when we were taking tea together and I grabbed whatever papers I could from her desk.”

“Rasselas! Is he alright?” Charlotte jumped slightly, having forgotten that her sister was standing right behind her. She was too focussed on the Fitzwilliam women in front of her.

“Yes, in fact he mentioned the last time I saw him that he had a new beau.” Charlotte snapped her head up at that remark, surprised at Sophia’s blasé manner of speaking of two men being together. She had been clear in her letter to Charlotte eight months ago that she found both the idea of any sort of ‘sodomy’ to be abhorrent.

Sophia’s attitude had obviously been changed by someone or something. Charlotte decided to simply ask her. “You friends with Rasselas then? And you have no problem with him bein’ a molly boy?”

Isabella looked puzzled at both their remarks. “Prince Rasselas is a molly boy?” Charlotte just gave her a pointed stare before looking back at Sophia again.

“W-well I did at first. Very much so. But he is such a kind man a-and he has helped me so much.” Sophia’s eyes closed as she delivered her next remark. “Love is not a sin.”

Charlotte looked up to see Isabella’s eyes well up with tears at her daughter’s remark. She leaned up and rubbed her beloved’s back gently. The two of them shared a soft smile. Charlotte mouthed an ‘I love you’ to the older woman and Isabella just chuckled wetly.

“Why don’t we all go into the sitting room and talk about what we’re going to do with this ‘proof’ Sophia has given us?” Lucy’s voice tore her from her shared gaze with Isabella. Charlotte nodded her ascension.

She took a look at Sophia, noting the girl’s anxious and worried face. “Before we go,” Charlotte started. “I’d like to speak to Sophia alone for a moment.” She looked up at Isabella to give her a reassuring nod. Isabella stammered a minute before sputtering out. “O-oh well, alright.”

Charlotte felt Lucy brush past her to grasp Isabella’s arm to lead her to the sitting room. She chuckled slightly at the sight of her small sister leading around one of the tallest women Charlotte had ever known.

Charlotte slid her gaze back to Sophia. The girl still stood, wringing her hands nervously. Before Charlotte could even open her mouth, Sophia blurted out, “I just want you to know I no longer find any issue with your relationship to my mother. The two of you obviously love each other, ve-very much.” Charlotte blanched at the younger girl’s statement before smiling back at her gently.

“That wasn’t what I wanted to talk to you about, but I’m sure Isabella will be grateful for your acceptance. She’s been through enough lately.” Charlotte looked down at her hands, remembering how she had to pin Isabella down to stop her nightmares barely two months prior. “We all have.” She whispered.

Charlotte walked over to where Sophia stood and grasped the girl’s arm, guiding her to sit down with her on the steps.

“Sophia. I need you to be honest with me.” The girl continued to look at her with huge round eyes.  _ Harcourt’s eyes.  _ Charlotte noted, nearly choking at the thought of the poor girl’s parentage and conception.

She swallowed down the lump in her throat and continued. “Has Blayne ever, has he-” Charlotte’s voice trailed off as she noted Sophia’s face turning grey. Charlotte leaned forward and placed a trembling hand on the girl’s shoulder to try and comfort her.

Charlotte mustered up enough strength to speak again. “Has he ever touched you or hurt you in any sort of  _ untoward  _ way?” The girl gulped visibly and was also clearly fighting back tears. Charlotte crouched down so that she was beneath the girl and gently clasped Sophia’s soft hands in her own. Charlotte continued to implore her. “It’s okay Sophia. You can tell me.”

The younger girl looked away, though tears continued to build up in her eyes. “No. He never truly touched me or despoiled me.” Charlotte let out a heavy sigh of relief. Sophia, however, was not finished. “He did seem to make...some sort of advances towards me at times as I said before. And he is quite...possessive in his grips on my arms or when we embrace when I leave for school.”

Charlotte bit her tongue to suppress the urge to curse loudly in front of the younger girl. She looked up at the ceiling and let out a harsh breath to calm herself. “Ms. Wells.” She looked back to the girl again. “Now I need you to be honest with me. Is Blayne-is he…” The girl’s voice shook with obvious trepidation.

“Is Blayne my father?” Charlotte could not suppress the loud gasp she let out. “What?” She could not help her exclamation of shock either. “Sophia w-why would you even think that?”

The blonde girl in front of her choked back a sob. “It’s true isn’t it? The way he speaks so possessively of my mother. The way he lingers on her portraits in the manor. The way my mother is so adamant in no-one ever finding out who my father truly is.” Charlotte found her own eyes watering at Sophia’s words. She was reminded of her conversation with Isabella so many months ago.  _ You’re not damned. _

“I-I don’t know what to say, love.” Charlotte stood them both up and gently guided the crying girl to her chest. Sophia began to shake with her heaving sobs. Charlotte just rubbed her back gently.

“But I do know, that no matter who your father is or how you were conceived,” She pulled back to cup Sophia’s cheek gently and look into her doe eyes. “Your mother loves you  _ so so  _ much. She would gladly die if it meant you were protected from the world.” She let Sophia throw herself back to cry into Charlotte’s chest more. They stood that way for several minutes, giving Sophia time to collect herself.

Sophia pulled back and wiped her eyes with the back of her sleeve. “I guess I shouldn’t tell my mother that I know about this, should I?” Charlotte chuckled wetly and smiled back at the girl painfully. “No, it’s for the best that she still thinks you ignorant of the depths of your uncle’s depravity.”

  
  


Isabella wrung her hands nervously in the sitting room. Charlotte had been speaking alone with her daughter for nearly fifteen minutes now. Lucy, probably noting her anxiousness, piped up to say, “Stop worryin’ so much Lady Fitz. You know whatever they’re talkin’ about can’t be  _ that  _ bad.” 

Isabella sighed loudly and propped her chin up on one of her hands on the arm rest. It was a most unladylike maneuver that likely would have sent any woman of the  _ beau monde  _ into a gossiping frenzy, but her mannerisms and habits had become less and less ladylike the longer she stayed in the Wells’ brothel. She found, however, that she did not care.

Lucy patted her on the back and Isabella smiled back at her and responded. “Yes I’m sure you’re righ-” It was then that Charlotte and Sophia finally walked through the door. They had both clearly been crying. Isabella jumped up and ran to the both of them.

Sophia threw herself into her mother’s arms and squeezed around her tightly. Isabella narrowed her eyes at Charlotte and watched as the younger woman gulped. She sent her lover a look that clearly stated  _ we’ll talk about this later.  _ Charlotte just visibly swallowed again and gave her a soft smile.

She watched as the younger woman went and sat on the couch next to her sister. She pulled back from the embrace with her daughter and looked at her with as loving of a gaze as she could muster. “Sophia, is something wrong?” Her daughter’s blonde curls bounced as she shook her head. “No Mother. It’s nothing.  I just wanted you to know how much I love and care about you.”

Isabella couldn’t help the tears that sprang up into her eyes at her daughter’s remarks. “Well. What did you and Charlotte talk about?” Sophia’s eyes widened imperceptibly before she stammered out, “W-well. You actually. Ms. Wells may be a bawd and I like to think of myself as a Lady, but our shared love for you brings us together.” Isabella clasped Sophia to her chest again.

Her head snapped up as she heard a commotion and Fanny’s voice yelling out, “Hey don’t you dare barge in here!” It was then that Isabella heard the horrid voice she hoped to never hear again. “Heh, you’re the barge dear.” Before Lydia Quigley and two large men rounded the corner.

Isabella immediately pulled Sophia behind her back. “Oh Sophia thank God you’re safe.” Dame Death said, with her best actress face on. “Your uncle and I have been worried to death.” Charlotte was suddenly between Isabella and her daughter and Lydia.

“Yeah she’s safe. Safe here with us. And her  _ mother. _ ” Lydia looked taken aback by Charlotte’s words for only a moment. “Oh yes, her mother. What sort of mother would allow her child in a place like this?” Charlotte raised her hand to hit Lydia delivering a “Why you septic  _ cunt-”  _ Isabella grabbed her arm before she could land the blow.

“A place like this? You mean a place like your own house on Golden Square?” Isabella gaped as her daughter stepped out from behind her. Lydia gasped loudly in feigned shock. “Why Sophia, I neve-” “NO.” Her daughter pushed her way between Isabella and Charlotte and got right into Lydia’s face. Isabella noted dumbly that her daughter was actually a bit taller than Lydia.

“My mother all but lost all of her God given sanity because of how you and my uncle manipulated a lied your way into placing her into a institution she did not deserve to be in! I will hear no more of your treacherous and horrid lies!” Isabella took great pleasure in seeing how Lydia genuinely shrunk back at her daughter’s harsh words.

“My dear Sophia I-” “Shut up! I am not  _ your  _ dear anything! I will not be returning to you or my uncle’s home again.” Sophia pointed at the door and Isabella looked up and saw that both Mr. North and another young black man stood in the doorway, readying themselves to physically throw Lydia and her men out if need be. Her daughter continued. “You are  _ not  _ welcome here Mrs. Quigley! Leave! Now!”

Isabella found herself repulsed at the way Lydia just chuckled darkly. “You poor girl. You have  _ no  _ idea what it means to not be under my protection.” Lydia motioned to the men with her to leave, not giving any of them a second glance.

Charlotte let out a low whistle. “Damn Sophia, you’ve got some guts to you.” Isabella turned and kissed Charlotte on the mouth solidly, not caring if her daughter saw. Charlotte moaned against her mouth softly and Isabella pulled back, placing her forehead on her lover’s. “Thank you for trying to protect my daughter and I my love.” Charlotte leaned up and gave her another chaste kiss. “I will always protect you.” The younger woman delivered, along with a gentle stroke of Isabella’s face.

Lucy cleared her throat loudly and Isabella turned around to see both her and her daughter’s faces quite red at Isabella and Charlotte’s actions. “I think we should probably get back to business here ladies.”

William North and the other young black man stepped further into the room. “What business Luce?” Isabella felt Charlotte slide a hand down her arm and clasp their hands together.

“We’re going to take them down Pa.” Lucy said. “Blayne, Mrs. Quigley, and all the so-called Spartans that have been rapin’ and killin’ girls.”

North smiled widely and sat down next to the youngest Wells girl. Charlotte pulled Isabella down to a chair that was likely too small for them to sit comfortably together, but Isabella relished the closeness.

Sophia sat down next to them in the chair at the head of them all. Isabella smiled slightly as her daughter began speaking of her plan.  _ Maybe this time, I will finally be free from Harcourt forever. _


End file.
